Created in Switzerland and located in Bonn, Germany, the 4C Association has over 120 members representing the most important parts of the world coffee community (November 2009).
The 4C Association Common Code for the Coffee Community (4 “C”) is an open and market-based initiative to promote and encourage sustainability in the green coffee chain. Participants in the initiative cooperate to achieve sustainability in the production, post-harvest processing and marketing of mainstream green coffee by increasing the number of coffees with the basic sustainability criteria in three dimensions: social, environmental and economic. The code is open to all coffee chain participants who follow these principles.