Tough Decisions: Coffee's Carbon Footprint

I have been reading a lot of alarming articles recently about the carbon footprint of coffee.  I say "alarming" because I absolutely must have coffee, and I love it more than life itself. Well, almost more.

I was reading this article by Forbes with interest, until I hit a bit that made me shake my head and click away.  The article is about Starbucks' corporate interest in the company's carbon footprint.  Forbes pointed out that Starbucks has a vested interest in reducing its carbon emissions, since coffee plants are being grown in parts of the world that will be adversely affected by climate change.  No coffee plants means no Starbucks, after all!

The company has spent a lot of time and money collecting data on its carbon footprint, and finding ways to reduce it.  But here's the bit that made me laugh: "Starbucks decided to leave out the additional 81,000 tons of carbon dioxide it emitted through transporting coffee materials and disposing solid waste."  They left that bit out of their reports because they aren't able to control those emissions, and therefore it's not worth their time to try and track it. Which seems pretty disingenuous, if you ask me!

As you can imagine, the carbon footprint of coffee can be fairly substantial.  Most coffee is grown in tropical equatorial locations, and the beans are then shipped across the world to wherever your location happens to be.  Transportation is one of the primary contributions to the United States' crazy high carbon footprint, so it behooves us to avoid faraway foods.  

Most of us have already "gone local," by shopping at farmers markets and subscribing to CSA plans. Unfortunately although it is easy in most parts of the country to find local produce, unless you live in Hawaii you are not going to be able to find local coffee.  

My first reaction was to think, "Well I'll just switch to drinking Kona coffee exclusively!"  Until I looked at a map, and realized that Kona was practically the same distance from me as Columbia.  Avoiding African coffees can help your carbon footprint, although I would make a case for Fair Trade coffees from Africa, from a sociological perspective.  (It's hard to make these choices, isn't it?  Prevent climate change, or help an African family buy shoes?)

If you add milk to your coffee (as I do), the footprint of your cup increases even farther.  Think of the methane emitted by the cow who provided the milk, not to mention the distance the milk was shipped before it splashed into your cup.  Hunting down milk from a local dairy can definitely help, here!

(It's worth pointing out here that if you order a latte at Starbucks, it's probably better to choose regular milk over their Horizon Organics.  Horizon unfortunately has a terrible ecological record as a company, so the planetary benefits from their organic methods are lost.  And Horizon's milk is shipped from a central location in Illinois, whereas the "regular" milk at Starbucks will be something more local.)