Enjoyment with a completely clear conscience? Truly sustainable coffee sounds excellent.
Enjoyment with a completely clear conscience? Truly sustainable coffee sounds excellent.
We know that every cup of coffee is based on a shaky carbon footprint and unfavorable levels of water consumption. After all, coffee beans don’t come from an urban farming start-up in Brooklyn, but are shipped to North America from Papua New Guinea or Honduras.
So, what does this mean when it comes to the topic of “sustainable coffee”?
Overview: Sustainable Coffee
Coffee production is one of the most resource-intensive value chains in the entire food and beverage world. And there are plenty of rusty, dirty and sometimes shady links in this chain. We’re all aware of this. That’s why we breathe a sigh of relief when a roaster assures us that they are putting sustainable coffee in their bags.
“Sustainable coffee” sounds like good production conditions, ecological mindfulness and a bit of a perfect world. But we have to face facts: truly sustainable coffee just doesn’t exist. For that to happen, coffee beans would have to grow just as well in Kansas as in Rwanda.
There are also macroeconomic factors that prevent wishful thinking from becoming reality. These include the world market price for coffee. Or the attitude of us as consumers.
However, there are roasters and roasting companies that are taking big steps toward actual coffee sustainability. This isn’t just about cultivation, but also about fairness, transparency and sustainability standards, all of which I’lll examine in more detail later.
I want to show you why it is important to use beans that, if not technically sustainable, are at least sustainable coffee in that they adhere to certain standards.
Can Coffee Actually Be Sustainable?
A coffee farm only looks like paradise in Tchibo advertisements. Coffee plants often cannot be harvested with agricultural machinery, especially not under the geographical conditions that we romanticize with the term “highland coffee.”
But since the concept of “sustainability” has been blowing around the world like confetti, we tend to ignore this reality. The word is loud and green. But there is a catch: its actual definition.
What Does Sustainability Mean?
If something is sustainable in a narrow sense, the system whose resources we are consuming can sustain that consumption without suffering permanent damage. It can regenerate those resources in X amount of time and then go through a new cycle.
However, since no system exists in isolation, this resource-related zero-sum game would also have to work for all connected systems, which in turn are connected to other systems.
Ideally, sustainable coffee would require a sustainable world.
So, realistically speaking, sustainability involves a state of constantly surfing on the edge of overexploitation; a balancing of the elasticity of what is bearable.
The Five Systems of Coffee Production
Nowhere is the thicket of structures and interrelationships more pronounced than in the macrosystem of coffee production. It can be roughly divided into five subsystems, each of which presents its own challenges for sustainability.
Coffee plantations rely heavily on monocultures and have an enormous need for water – both for growing the coffee plants and for processing the cherries.
The management of a coffee farm has a major impact on the immediate and indirect environment, even if no pesticides are used. In leading coffee-producing countries such as Brazil, these influences are exacerbated by the need for land for cultivation.
In order for your beans to arrive in your hopper, a lot of people have to work and get paid. We have to ask about the working conditions in each location, the fairness of wages, child labor laws, community factors and lots more.
Even if we think primarily about the conditions on the farm, we must not forget that roasters also have to make a living somehow. Or that a manufacturer of coffee bags should ensure that its employees get vacation and enough fresh air.
Alongside ecology, the economy is probably the biggest factor in the sustainability problem. This is where the interconnectedness and global scope of the definition are most evident.
The world market price for coffee, which has been aggressively suppressed by major players, has a direct impact on economic efficiency and social conditions. Which in turn has a direct impact on farming methods.
Anyone who has to produce cheaply won’t give a damn about ecology. Exploitation is the first response to economic pressure. After all, people living in poverty can hardly defend themselves, let alone the planet.
Coffee’s journey to North America is always long. And the longer the supply chain, the greater the logistical challenges. This isn’t just about costs and time, but also about possible loss of quality during the journey and the many steps that turn green coffee into a finished product.
This point is often forgotten in the discussion about sustainability – if only because we, as consumers, are too close to the issue.
As I noted in my guide to storing coffee, for example, there is a huge difference between the understanding of coffee as a staple food and its actual status as a luxury item.
The gap between the two views creates different opinions about the appropriate minimum price, the quality and the impact of our coffee consumption in a completely saturated market dominated by large coffee companies.
What Does Sustainable Coffee Mean?
Sustainably produced coffee attempts to overcome all of the challenges we have just discussed, with an impact on future generations. It should be clear how immense this task is. It should also be clear that it is essentially impossible to accomplish.
However, sustainable coffee that deserves its name approaches the matter from the right direction and with real impact.
The basic approach is relatively simple: look at each subsystem, identify each problem and, if possible, do the opposite.
Sustainable coffee producers are aware that they can only make certain factors less serious, but cannot reverse them.
For example, in terms of ecology: coffee plants cannot survive without water. A revolution in processing is not to be expected for the time being. So we are working on at least using less water and, at the same time, finding methods for recycling it.
Therefore, sustainably produced coffee is a mishmash of different levels of feasibility, above which stands the commitment to seize every new opportunity to become even better.
Defining Sustainable Coffee
Because sustainability is so complex, various terms have been established to turn the huge field into tangible (and marketable) concepts. Accordingly, sustainable coffee is simultaneously:
Ecologically produced coffee: Responsible use of water, soil, natural resources and animals – from the plantation in the growing areas to the packaging in the roastery.
Fair trade coffee: Fair prices for coffee producers, fair wages for farmers and a reasonable purchase price for consumers.
Socially acceptable coffee: No exploitation, no child labor, a safe work environment and good living conditions.
Future-oriented coffee: New findings from research are used to employ methods and plants that deliver high quality without the need for chemicals and excessive natural resources.
Relationship coffee: Direct trade relationships with small farmers create a profitable partnership on all levels, eliminating the need for middlemen and thus balancing the value chain.
Valuable coffee: Coffee is not seen as a mass product, but as an artisanal product where taste and quality come at a price.
Awareness-raising coffee: Consumers are becoming more aware of their role in coffee consumption, questioning components of supply chains and becoming skeptical of brands and advertised production conditions.
Ocafi incorporates all of these factors into my Coffeeness coffee beans. Even though I still have a problem with the concept of sustainability, I’m happy to have a partner who prefers to make a name for themselves through actions rather than through loud words.
Coffeeness Signature Espresso Blend
Perfectly suited for your Super Automatic Espresso Machine
Notes of Chocolate & Hazelnut
Easy on the stomach
Freshly roasted right in Brooklyn
Medium roast
Lip Service or Shopping Aid: Are There Quality Seals for Coffee Sustainability?
We can measure working conditions fairly objectively. And the same goes for certain environmental impacts. But what about fairness at the many stops along the coffee chain?
From TransFair to Rainforest Alliance, you can’t see the beans on some coffee packages because of all the certifications. And it’s no surprise that brands like Tchibo and other supermarket moguls adorn themselves with such stickers to give them a clear conscience.
You rarely see a certified-organic sticker on specialty coffee, and you’ll practically never see a Fairtrade seal. There are three good reasons for this:
Specialty coffee already has sustainability, as we have defined it here, in its very essence. If the coffee isn’t sustainable, it cannot become specialty coffee.
Most certifications are awarded by the mass-market industry, so their requirements are primarily based on the needs of the industry. And they do so according to their own standards. These seals are therefore a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Independent certifications such as Fairtrade and organic cost a lot of money. And not just for implementing the criteria. Certification is something like a subscription model for which a lot of money has to be paid each time. Most small producers cannot and do not want to shell out for this. Large brands with industrial power pay for it out of pocket and hardly need to worry about further information.
When it comes to sustainability certification, we face another problem: most labels specialize in one particular aspect. Organic for ecological, Fairtrade for social aspects, etc.
So, we would need either certificates from all five categories or a “super seal” that assesses and verifies every aspect according to objective and standardized criteria. But since we have determined that we cannot achieve the ideal situation, the question is what benchmark should actually be applied.
The Way Forward
Responsible coffee producers and roasters – including our partner Ocafi – have therefore chosen a different, more sensible path.
Instead of hiding behind seals, they operate with full transparency. Plus, they work exclusively with farmers that they know personally, with whom they trade directly and where the products are produced organically without necessarily having to label them as organic.
They are keen to reflect sustainability’s complexity by providing evidence in the form of transparency reports and the like. Of course, this also requires a certain level of commitment from the customer, who has to read, analyze and ask questions.
While industry seals and certifications present a distillation that is supposed to give absolution to you and the coffee brands, roasters on the sustainable path make you part of the community task.
However, since people respond more to stimuli than to monologues, many roasters still give their methods and approaches an alluring name or join forces to promote better working and production conditions under a common word mark.
It is much more important that the roasters and traders themselves ensure that their supply chain meets the requirements. They can do this with a local presence, evidence and joint projects to improve production and working conditions.
Sustainable Coffee: The Journey Remains the Destination
It is incredibly frustrating to dismantle something that is actually good by defining it negatively. Especially because factors such as fairness, organic coffee and appreciating coffee farmers are not only important, but logical. At least if we still want to have something from our planet tomorrow.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who says otherwise can line their apartment with coffee capsules and wait for the lizard people to attack.
With every bag of coffee that doesn’t even meet the minimum sustainability standards, we are sending the entire human race straight to the organic waste bin.
Only when every last gram of Tchibo coffee meets the requirements set out here and no longer needs a Fairtrade seal will we be anywhere near the finish line. By the time that happens, hell will have frozen over.
It’s a good thing that there are enough alternatives on the market. And there are more and more arriving every day. So there is still a little hope.
As always, I look forward to your comments – and trust in your fairness on such a charged topic!
