Did You Know That Your Morning Coffee Can Help Save The Planet?

Coffee. Happy brain juice. Evil bean juice (my husband’s term). My precious delicious angel beverage that you will pry from my cold, dead hands (my term) (there may be some friction over this).

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say if you are reading this, you are 100% familiar with coffee. You might not drink it, you mindblowing unicorn you, but you know it. No one doesn’t know coffee.

I *preens self* know my coffee. Given the volume I used to drink, I am something of a connoisseur.

But there are things I didn’t know ABOUT coffee. For example, its environmental impact.

Apparently, the Environmental Impact of Coffee Farming Can Be Super, Super Bad

Coffee grown in a traditional manner (shaded under trees), is totally cool for the planet.

According to the Sustainable Business Toolkit, it “contributes to high biodiversity levels, thus creating a “working landscape” where farmers can grow coffee and make a living while contributing to conservation efforts” (https://www.sustainablebusinesstoolkit.com/environmental-impact-coffee-trade/).

This also provides a habitat for indigenous animals, which I am about.

However.

Apparently, because the demand for coffee has skyrocketed *looks guilty* manufacturers are switching to greater-volume-producing but hella-environmentally-unfriendly “sun growing” in which the beans are grown out in the sun. No shade, no trees.

Because “no trees” is a requirement here, this leads to deforestation in some of the world’s most delicate ecosystems. For the numbers-oriented among us, the Sustainable Business Toolkit says that “The switch to sun-grown coffee has resulted in over 2.5 million acres of forest cleared in Central America” (see previous link).

Oh. Um. Not cool with that one.

Sustainable Coffee Farming Is A Thing (aka Hope Rears Its Lovely Head)

But! I am currently on vacation, and the nice people at this hotel have coffee freely available in the lobby. As I acquired my morning cup, I noticed that the coffee pot/container/urn/thinger had a seal on it that said, “Rainforest Alliance Certified.”

I was curious, so I looked up what that meant.

The Rainforest Alliance, according to their website, “is an international non-profit organization working at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests to make responsible business the new normal. [They] are building an alliance to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis” (https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/about/).

I am here for *gestures comprehensively* ALL of this.

Having the Rainforest Alliance Seal means that independent auditors have confirmed that the product at hand (in this case, coffee) was produced using methods that support social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

For agricultural products (again, coffee), this means that it was certified to the Rainforest Alliance 2020 Agriculture Sustainability Standard (you can find it here).

Conclusion: Sweet, I Can Make My Coffee Habit Good For The Planet

My dudes, before this morning I had no idea that there were ecological concerns and solutions behind coffee. It’s something that had never occurred to me (until I read about it and went well duh, self, that makes sense). But I’m going to be specifically hunting out Rainforest Alliance coffee from now on.

Voting with my pocketbook and buying Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee will be absolutely no strain on me. It’s something really easy that I didn’t know I could do to make the world a slightly better place.

I’m also familiar with the effect of customer feedback, so after doing my Googling I walked over to the front desk and complimented them on having Rainforest Alliance Coffee. I told them it made me very happy to see, and they said thank you, and they’d send that up the chain 😊.

So in the morning when I have my first cup, I won’t just get a caffeine jolt. I’ll get the glow of doing something good as well.

And nothing starts the day like a self hell-yeah.