September 9, 2024 – Data plays a crucial role in advancing Sucafina’s sustainability strategy and shaping our IMPACT Program. In this Q&A, Yasin Toparlar, Sustainability Data Lead at Sucafina, told us more about our approach to data – from strengthening our capabilities to leveraging data-driven insights to address our five IMPACT Goal areas.
1. How is Sucafina’s Sustainability Strategy linked to data?
Yasin: Sucafina’s Sustainability Strategy draws on commonly accepted ‘responsible sourcing’ standards, but it doesn’t stop at this layer. The strategy brings a new dimension by quantifying the sustainability levels in supply chains based on five key IMPACT areas. Both the base layer and the new – IMPACT Progress – layer require the collection, storage, analysis, and reporting of large amounts of data. Our aim is to ensure that all IMPACT claims are
properly backed up by data. We believe effective use of this data will be key in engaging with farmers, supporting our clients, and building unique relationships with our stakeholders by providing unmatched insights and new business opportunities.
2. What are you working on to improve the sustainability team’s data capabilities?
Yasin: We are working on all pillars of the data value chain, from improving our data creation/gathering systems, all the way to data usage and advanced data analytics. The quality of farm/farmer-level data is important for us to understand and systematically evaluate sustainability metrics across our supply chains over time. With that, we expect to achieve reliable, consistent, and explainable outcomes. Additionally, we are working with our solution providers to create seamless data integrations to visualize our coffee traceability and sustainability reporting.
3. How is sustainability data strategy interlinked with other Sucafina teams?
Yasin: The sustainability data team is strongly linked with Sucafina’s digital transformation efforts, which are progressing rapidly with our new CIO, Romain Désigaud, and our Chief Transformation Officer, Raphaelle Hemmerlin. Raphaelle’s position is newly defined in Sucafina and one of the aims is to treat our data assets as valued, important assets of the company. Given the growing sustainability requirements, regulatory needs, and new opportunities, we believe sustainability data will no longer be siloed within sustainability but will become prevalent across the company.
4. What are some data initiative examples at this stage?
Yasin: In IMPACT’s first year, we kicked off various initiatives in the form of data products. One of the biggest achievements was the creation of IMPACT Progress reports, which focus on our five key IMPACT areas. The reports offer data-driven insights into our farmers, their livelihoods and practices, and the sustainability levels of our supply chains. We leveraged the data generated via farmer surveys conducted across various IMPACT supply chains, comprising 200+ questions. The data was then analyzed by our thematic metrics advisors on living income, agronomy, and carbon.
5. Where do you expect to be in a few years?
Yasin: Throughout 2024 we will be working hard on the foundational aspects of our data, such as building robust data governance mechanisms, focusing on metadata management, and preparing to scale our data capabilities. This will run in parallel to our efforts to satisfy regulatory/compliance data needs without which companies like Sucafina will not be able to do business in certain markets. In the coming years, we will start to target more ambitious approaches, leveraging more automation and analytics. In the long term, we aim to create the most modern, streamlined, and data-driven sustainability business in the coffee industry.
This Q&A was originally published in Sucafina’s 2023 Sustainability Report, “Making an IMPACT.” Read the full report for more insights into IMPACT, updates on our 2030 Sustainability Strategy, and much more.