Coffee drives humanity 

Without it, we would’nt be where we are now. 
Can you imagine someone building a company without a coffee? Me neither. So what is this about? Lets have a look from ecological standpoint.

  • 1 cup of coffee has a footprint of 140 L water and 0,10 Kg CO2 emissions
  • 1 Kg of coffee needs 18.900 L of water (Umweltbundesamt 28/2020)
  • Growing cultivated land with deforestation 
  • Cultivation of monocultures and use of pesticides (increases soil erosion and loss of soil fertility, less biodiversity and contamination of drinking water) 
  • Cultivation in third countries with child labor and low income

 

What can you do?

FAIRTRADE,  Rainforest Alliance? It’s difficult…

PROS

  • Improves working conditions and payment
  • Bans child labor and drug cultivation
  • Some cooperating farms have health care centers
  • Awareness raising

CONS

  • Farmers are dependent on certain traders
  • Non cooperating farmers (i.e. because of costs) may suffer from the system
  • Higher costs for end consumer that often do not benefit farmers
  • No purchase guarantee
  • Farmers are controlled but who controlls the traders in this system?
  • No direct trade
  • Audit themselves

There are several more fairtrade labels that we will cover up in the future. Until that point feel free to explore yourself with publications like the International Guide to Fair Trade Labels. 

Direct Trade

That is nothing with a certified label on the products, rather like a band (music) that has no contract to a music label and do everything on their own with no one on the way to grab an extra coin.

Fact is if you buy “FAIRTRADE” products you wont be buyin’ direct trade coffee. Of course you don’t have the fair in the trade at this point. No one tells you if that company has standards that you don’t agree with.  

There are suppliers that only cooperate with partners that have “fair trade like standards” or “Direct Fair Trade” as they call it i.e. Sina Green, Sol Caribeno, Direct Coffee, Moema, Green Cup Coffee, Oromo (no ads).

tl;dr

Currently I’m getting coffee from companies mentioned above. I’m happy to see some of them regularly at local supermarkets. 
In the end give yourself some time in the coffee corner of your local store and just study the sh*t out of that company (meaning 5min googleing).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.