What’s in Your Cup

There’s never a day I go without starting my morning with coffee. Call me a coffee addict (fair enough), but over the years, I’ve diligently stuck to one cuppa joe a day. It wasn’t until my passion for coffee bloomed that shed light into the dark side of the industry. It pains me to say that coffee production is done at the peril of the environment – namely, biodiversity loss, soil erosion and large amounts of water used. And after quenching the thirst of coffee addicts like myself, roughly 23 million tons of wasted coffee ground end up in the landfill each year leading to the release of methane gas into the atmosphere.

As a coffee lover, it’s only fair I do my part in saving the environment and ensuring fair treatment in the coffee industry. From being educated to educating the masses and drinking only sustainably sourced coffee, every little step counts. Not much thought goes into where the cup in front of you comes from, but that’s about to change.

What is sustainable coffee?

When we talk about sustainable coffee, we are capturing the start to end process – from harvesting beans on a farm to the cup served in front of you.

It’s coffee that is grown in a way that conserves nature and provides better livelihoods for the people who grow and process it.

Our definition of sustainable coffee is that all participants in the coffee value chain (from the coffee farmer to the coffee roaster) have a possibility to do profitable business so that human rights and general good business practices are followed. So, every person in the coffee value chain can go to sleep happy and wake up to make a good cup of coffee that he/she knows is fair to all the participants.
Warrior Coffee

The coffee industry is circular. It consists of farmers, the harvesting and processing of the beans, shipment of the beans, cups used to serve coffee, consumers and grounded coffee waste.

Environmental issues

Ever heard of a species called coffee going extinct? Well, that’s real. Let’s take a moment to imagine a world without coffee…frightful! For example, Coffea Arabica, the world’s most loved bean, is going extinct due to climate change, deforestation and pesticides. Climate change is a topic in and of itself, but deforestation and pesticides kill off wild nature and when growing coffee beans with limited shade from trees, carbon dioxide emission boosts and soil erosion occurs.

For every cup of coffee consumed, about one square inch of rainforest is destroyed and coffee farms lead to chemical runoffs in rivers, biodiversity loss, and soil erosion.

According to the Water Footprint Network, a 16-minute long shower is equivalent to one cup of coffee (how about that to put things into perspective!). To produce coffee, wet mills are used to separate the bean from its fruit (a.k.a. coffee cherry), producing wastewater due to the fruit that gets left in the water. The fruit leaks excessive nutrients into the water, causing for an imbalance in organism growth.

Social issues

Alongside environmental issues, social issues are factored into the farming of coffee beans. We wouldn’t be able to relish in our cuppa joe without the toil and investment of farmers. Most coffee is sourced from poverty-stricken countries with low income and an unequal workforce. These farmers are susceptible to price volatility and under-developed social infrastructure. To ease their burdens, farmers are assured to receive a minimum price and fair treatment.

Caffeinate responsibly

Given the environmental and social issues, standards are set in place to prevent further damage. When shopping for coffee beans or buying your next cup of coffee, keep a look out for certification labels to verify that what you’re getting is environmentally and socially-friendly. Here are a few:

Fair Trade	Indicates ethically-sourced, high quality coffee. It provides farmers a safety net when in doubt market prices hit rock bottom by ensuring a minimum price paid to them. It mitigates any disparity between farmers and large subsidized and industrialized producers.
Direct Trade	A direct channel between roasters or distributors and farmers is created to ensure high coffee bean quality.
Organic	Coffee beans are harvested and processed without the use of synthetic fertilizers, artificial and chemical substances, pesticides and herbicides.
Rainforest Alliance	Regulates the exploitation of environmental and labor practices. It protects forests, improves the livelihoods of farmers and their rights and helps farmers adapt to climate change.
Bird Friendly (shade-grown)	Ensures that coffee is grown while protecting the habitat of birds. Coffee is grown under shade trees and thus, carbon emissions reduce and a healthy and happy environment is fostered.

*Not all sustainable coffee will have these labels because it does cost a chunk to afford these certifications. It’s always best to ask the seller or barista.