Background
Conservation International (hereafter referred to as “CI”) protects nature for the benefit of humanity. Through science, policy, fieldwork, and finance, we spotlight and secure the most important places in nature for the climate, for biodiversity, and for people. With offices in 30 countries and projects in more than 100 countries, CI partners with governments, companies, civil society, Indigenous peoples, and local communities in order to help people and nature thrive together. CI has been working for 25+ years on coffee sustainability.
Since December 2015, CI has been leading the Sustainable Coffee Challenge (hereafter referred to as “the Challenge”). The Challenge is a global multi-stakeholder coalition that convenes, unites, and urges stakeholders from across the coffee sector to spur the actions and investments necessary to make coffee the first sustainable agricultural product in the world. As part of their broader collective commitments, partners in the Challenge have pledged to “secure 100 million tons of carbon” by 2025. This project is part of that commitment.
Project Overview
CI is seeking an experienced and qualified organization (hereafter referred to as “the consulting organization”) to support CI’s Sustainable Coffee Challenge team in the development and implementation of a pre-competitive study to establish national carbon footprint baselines in five coffee-producing origins in Latin America[1] (Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Peru). This initiative will replicate and build on a study led by USAID Green Invest Asia (hereafter referred to as the GIA study) that established national carbon footprint baselines for Robusta coffee production in Vietnam and Indonesia; the GIA study was finalized in June 2023.[2]
The current study, under the direction of CI, continues to address the urgent needs across the coffee sector to enhance the availability and consistency of on-farm coffee carbon footprint data (collected using an aligned and consistent methodology). The aim is for the consulting organization to establish – with support from CI and a Project Lead – industry-accepted and statistically-sound national carbon footprint baselines for Arabica and Robusta coffee production in the five origins (potentially, sub-national baselines to be established where possible/applicable). Additionally, the study will develop:
- An improved framework and mechanism for regular data collection, sharing, and analysis to facilitate impact monitoring and reporting, both by individual companies and at the aggregate sector and/or country level.
- Improved sector-wide awareness on building data collection plans and monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) techniques for carbon baselining and tracking, as part of both new and existing programming.
- Increased capacities of supply chain actors to understand, document, and report on carbon emissions and sequestration in coffee systems, using both newly-collected and existing data.
- Successful pre-competitive collaboration to accelerate climate action through the establishment of replication protocol to other origins and commodities, and insight into investment opportunities.The latest version of the study’s project description is available upon request at: scc.consultant@conservation.org.
Terms of Reference, Deliverables, and Deliverables Schedule
The consulting organization will engage with CI, the Project Lead, and the project’s consortium partners (funders)[3] to develop national carbon footprint baselines for each origin through a phased approach. The consulting organization will be responsible for
1) collaboratively developing a project work-plan;
2) designing a representative sampling framework to collect data from the five origins[4];
3) developing and translating standardized farmer data collection surveys that are aligned/compatible with the Cool Farm Tool (CFT) perennials module;
4) assessing the feasibility of using existing data to answer survey questions or support sampling, and identify data gaps beyond this;
5) developing and implementing online training for enumerators (to be sourced from approximately 10 recruited supplier-partners)[5] in the use of the survey templates that will gather the data to fill gaps;
- guiding data collection and offering support as needed to enumerators;
7) compiling, cleaning, and analyzing the farmer data provided by the supplier-partners;
8) integrating geospatial data, including data on historic land use change as possible;
9) conducting a comparative analysis of different carbon footprints using different tools as possible, to improve confidence in the CFT results;[6]
10) authoring technical reports on all findings; and
11) participating in meetings for internal and external communications as relevant. The consulting organization will also play a key role in creating technical awareness and fomenting technical consensus among the project’s consortium partners, and will work closely with the Project Lead and the rest of the coffee team within CI’s Center for Sustainable Lands & Waters. The consulting organization will report to the Director of Sustainable Coffee Partnerships.
More details on the terms of reference as well as the Deliverables can be found on our procurement website https://www.conservation.org/about/procurement-opportunities
How to apply
Proposal Submission Details
Deadline. Proposals must be received no later no later than March 31, 2024 COB EDT. Proposals must be submitted via email to ciprocurement@conservation.org. All proposals are to be submitted following the guidelines listed in the RFP.
Validity of bid. 90 days from the submission deadline.
Clarifications. Questions may be submitted to ciprocurement@conservation.org by the specified date and time in the timeline in the RFP. The subject of the email must contain the RFP number and title of the RFP. CI will respond in writing to submitted clarifications by the date specified in the timeline . Responses to questions that may be of common interest to all bidders will be posted to the CI website and/or communicated via email.
Amendments. At any time prior to the deadline for submission of proposals, CI may, for any reason, modify the RFP documents by amendment which will be posted to the CI website and/or communicated via email.
Application details and timelines can be found in the link here https://www.conservation.org/about/procurement-opportunities