Coffee and Environmental Problems

When savoring the warm aroma from a steaming mug of coffee, many consumers do not know the beans’ impact on nature and climate. Few realize that coffee drives major environmental problems.

Coffee drives massive deforestation

Coffee is one of the top six drivers of deforestation worldwide.

“The top ten global producers of coffee emitted 21 million tCO₂ in 2017 as a result of deforestation linked to coffee production. Eliminating these emissions would be equivalent to removing 4.5 million cars from the road, or the carbon sequestration from growing 350 million new tree seedlings for a decade. These countries are also among the most biodiverse in the world, meaning that protecting their forest areas can potentially deliver significant co-benefits for ecosystem services, water protection, nutrient storage, and biological resources such as food and medicinal products.”¹

One example of important research on deforestation for coffee is a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report² on how illegal coffee cultivation drove deforestation and habitat destruction in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBSNP) in Indonesia. In an attempt to establish coffee plantations, an estimated 28% of the BBSNP has been degraded, with 60% of this degraded area used solely for agriculture. Furthermore, coffee accounted for 73% of crops illegally grown inside the park. This illegal coffee entered global supply chains and major international coffee companies purchased it.

A New York Times investigative article³ on BBSNP detailed how despite an apparent success in tiger conservation efforts, the park faced a severe deforestation problem. Approximately one-fifth of the park’s protected lands – nearly 150,000 acres – had been cleared by 2015. Following this, satellite imagery revealed a rapidly shrinking forest area year after year.

We must ensure that the global coffee industry shifts immediately to no-deforestation. The EU has passed a law requiring all coffee that enters Europe to be deforestation-free. Plenty of companies know how to comply or preparing to do so. This is a sign that the whole industry can and should shift to guarantee zero-deforestation coffee, everywhere.

Coffee monoculture destroys biodiversity

A large part of the world’s coffee is grown not in agroecological agroforestry systems but rather, as monocultures. The eco-disaster created by monocultures presents bugs, birds, bats and other species with what amounts to a food desert, rather than the biodiverse banquet that they would otherwise find in robust agroforestry systems.

Coffee industry titans can and must change this paradigm. Civil society can press the coffee industry to shift from monoculture to beautiful agroforestry, which can store double the carbon and has 19 times more biodiversity!

Coffee pesticides poison planet and people

A significant quantity of agrochemicals are used to grow coffee, which in turn poisons people and our planet and contributes to mass extinction. For example, the present insect apocalypse is driven by chemicals used in agriculture. Coffee farming has become increasingly dependent on pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other chemicals over the past 70 years. Thus, coffee companies must reform their current approach and implement practices that do not rely on these dangerous chemicals.

Conventionally grown coffee is one of the most chemically-treated beverages on the market.⁴ Consumers' and farmers' exposure to pesticides can be hazardous to human health - producing short- to long-term side effects.

In developing countries like Colombia, Indonesia, and Brazil, where the majority of coffee is grown, there are few to no regulations on the chemicals and pesticides used, which means farmers can spray their crops with just about anything. In fact, some of the chemicals these farmers use are chemicals that have already been banned in America, Europe, and Japan due to their harmful effects on health. While it’s long been argued that the pesticide residues on coffee beans are removed during the roasting process, one study suggests that a percentage of some agrochemicals can soak inside the coffee bean and remain after the roasting process.⁵

The wide use of pesticides in coffee production leads to significant water and soil contamination throughout the areas where coffee is cultivated. For example, a 2013 study by Danish reporters in Brazil found traces of 24 different pesticides in waterways near plantations. Not only are these very likely to be carcinogenic to humans, but they are extremely toxic to aquatic life.⁶

Chemicals in coffee can even hurt the very pollinators needed for coffee to thrive. Pollinator visits and pollinator diversity are crucial for coffee. Chemicals in coffee can also hurt the creatures that fight coffee pests: ants or spiders which reduce damages by the coffee leaf miner and coffee berry borer, or birds and bats that eat arthropods.

Coffee cultivation does not require chemicals like highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) - indeed, there are plenty of successful examples of organic coffee or coffee produced with very limited chemicals. The global coffee industry should be transitioning to production characterized by the use of minimal chemicals.

Coffee’s water footprint & waste dumped in rivers

It takes a gigantic amount of water to make coffee, from irrigating plants to processing and washing coffee and coffee wet milling. The Water Footprint Network estimates the global average water footprint of a single 125ml cup of coffee to be 140 liters - more than the water used in a 16-minute shower! This was corroborated by a 2003 UNESCO study.

Processing coffee also regularly generates a significant amount of waste, much of which (in conventional production) gets thrown into rivers - polluting water for all downstream communities. Rare are the coffee companies that minimize such harms with techniques to ferment coffee dry rather than by steeping, or to treat all their effluents.

It doesn't have to be this way!

The coffee industry can roll out techniques and technologies with massive potential to save water. Those exist already in pilot schemes, and can be scaled up, with investments made by the coffee industry. All coffee companies should clean up their act, treat their effluents, and protect not only nearby rivers, but also the people who depend on them.

Packaging & single-use cups

Packaging can account for nearly one-third of average coffee companies’ CO₂ emissions, from coffee bags to primary, secondary, or tertiary packaging - as well as coffee capsules/pods, few of which are recyclable or recycled.

Billions of coffee cups are thrown away annually, worldwide, only a tiny fraction of which are recycled, with plastic coated cups polluting landfills, oceans and waterways. Most coffee capsules/pods are not made out of recycled materials and are neither genuinely recyclable nor compostable. It's vital for the coffee industry to address the severe environmental impacts of their packaging, especially cups and pods.

Animal cruelty: elephants and civets

In some cases, coffee can drive heartbreaking animal cruelty including abuses of civets and elephants. Civet coffee, also known as kopi luwak, is made using coffee cherries that have been eaten and excreted by civets, small nocturnal mammals native to Asia. While marketed as a rare delicacy, most civet coffee today comes from civets kept in small cages and force-fed cherries, leading to extreme stress, illness, and shortened lifespans. In contrast, elephants in India are not part of coffee production but face growing risks as coffee farms expand into their natural habitat; when they damage crops or property, they are captured and confined by authorities.

Coffee's milk problem (...and cow farts and burps)

Coffee can be thought of as a milk-delivery mechanism. Roughly 3/4 of Americans put milk or creamer in their coffee. Fun fact: Starbucks is thought to be the biggest purveyor of milk in the USA after the US government itself! Given that cow milk has a large methane footprint, coffee shops should be finding ways to either reduce their footprint from cow milk production methane emissions, or help customers switch to lower-emission plant-based milk.

Lack of traceability in coffee

The failure of individual coffee companies to become fully deforestation-free and "nature positive" is due to several issues. One is the lack of traceability. Most coffee passes through multiple hands on its path from farmer to consumer, with as many as 20 intermediaries along the journey. With much of the world’s coffee being untraceable, companies cannot know if there is deforestation at its origin.

It is impossible to end deforestation in coffee without ensuring the full traceability of coffee. Traceable supply chains help determine if the deforestation discovered by satellites is happening in and around coffee, or due to another commodity/problem. The coffee industry should embrace traceability as a powerful tool for ensuring it diminishes its negative environmental footprint.

Ineffective solutions and flawed certification schemes

The Sustainable Coffee Challenge or the Global Coffee Platform (GCP), the Taskforce of the International Coffee Organization, the Coffee Price Crisis Response Initiative , and other platforms are organized around the goal of collective coffee sustainability action. There are also numerous certification schemes in coffee, including 4C and C.A.F.E. Practices. Unfortunately to date these platforms and certifications have failed to address key sustainability issues in the coffee industry. For example, these platforms do not require member-companies to commit to paying a living wage to coffee farmworkers, or to a deforestation-free supply chain, let alone a path to 'net zero' or 'nature positive.' Most certifications do not ensure a living wage for farmworkers or a living income for farmers, which means they may actually be certifying poverty! (And, of course, poverty in turn creates a major risk for deforestation, child labor, and other abuses such as forced labour). Coffee platforms and certifications can and should take more real, significant steps to guarantee big, concrete solutions like living incomes, no deforestation, and agroforestry.

Environmental and social issues are linked

Social sustainability challenges found in coffee - such as exploitation, poverty, slavery, and child labor - frequently intertwine with environmental sustainability challenges. For instance, the widespread use of pesticides in coffee intersects with child labor: when children working in coffee are exposed to pesticides, the kind of labor they are involved in is deemed to be “hazardous child labor” according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Another example of intersectionality occurs when coffee is cultivated as a monoculture. Farmers who use monoculture cropping become hostage to the vicissitudes of market shocks: if the price of coffee is high, they might stand to benefit, but if it plummets, they are impoverished. In contrast, agroforestry coffee farmers can not only boast a far better performance on carbon/biodiversity - but, they can also benefit from income diversification and its attendant protection from market shocks. With several crops on their farms, such smallholders are less affected when any single crop price drops down on the global market – their vulnerability to poverty and exploitation is somewhat mitigated, as compared to that of monocroppers. A good agroforestry coffee system involves planting crops that can contribute to the food security of farmers and their families.

Coffee companies should examine these interlocking problems holistically and craft solutions that take into account this much larger picture.