The Bird Friendly Coffee project began in Panama in 1996 when Greenberg and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center hosted the first Sustainable Coffee Congress, convening 270 people from 19 countries. Not only did the meeting include representatives from the coffee industry, representatives of Starbucks, USAID, and the Specialty Coffee Association of America also took part. Conference papers made the case for shade-grown coffee and proposed a certification system to motivate both producers and consumers to adopt this system.