Coffee is one of the most widely traded agricultural commodities in the world, yet its production remains highly vulnerable to climate change, price volatility, and structural inequalities across the supply chain. Smallholder producers, who account for the majority of the global coffee production, operate within systems where risk is concentrated at origin while value is captured downstream. Despite the growing prominence of sustainability initiatives within the coffee industry, many of these vulnerabilities still persist.

This research explores coffee sustainability as a system-level challenge, examining how risk, value and coordination are distributed across the coffee value chain. Grounded in collaboration with the coffee farming community of La Papaya in Loja, Ecuador, this research adopts a participatory and systems-informed approach. Methods include ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, signal scanning, systems thinking, strategic foresight, and design methodologies.

Findings reveal a misalignment between value creation and value capture, alongside gaps in coordination and communication across actors. While sustainability initiatives and specialty market differentiation introduce new forms of value, they often operate within structures that limit long-term implementation.

The research identifies leverage points focused on strengthening relationships, improving feedback loops, enhancing value recognition at origin and exploring connections to end markets to reduce exposure to risks. By framing sustainability as a relational systemic condition, this study contributed to more coordinated and context-driven approaches within the specialty coffee sector.