Top Ten Questions Answered about Carbon + Coffee

By Dr. Erika Koss

In the past two decades, the coffee industry has increasingly become obsessed with carbon strategies, especially in the last several years.

When I teach Coffee Sustainability courses, I receive many questions about carbon related words, what they mean, and what they don’t.

Here are answers to ten of the most frequently asked questions I receive from my students (with further reading recommendations to help you find more specific information).

4. How can emissions be measured in the coffee industry? What factors must be included?

As noted in question 1,  Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide are the most common emissions for the coffee industry, so any accurate accounting of a coffee’s carbon footprint must include all three.

To conduct a full analysis, an organization would need to calculate its carbon footprint through a  Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

The Belgium company EFICO offers a thorough examination on their website, “From Tree to Cup: Understanding Coffee’s Carbon Footprint,” summarized here:

A LCA “is a method used to evaluate the full environmental impact of a product or process from cradle to grave. In the case of coffee, this means assessing everything from planting the tree to brewing the coffee and disposing of the cup.

An LCA goes beyond measuring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It also examines impacts on water use, soil health, biodiversity, and human well-being. In some cases, LCAs even address social factors.”

One important consideration is the difference between “direct” and “indirect” emissions.

“Direct emissions” refers to the elements that are within the control of any company or supply chain actor. For example, a roaster can control their roasting machine’s emissions. “Indirect emissions” result from activities an actor cannot control. For example, that same roaster does not control the carbon emissions of the farms from where they purchase beans, or of the brewing methods of their customers.

Carbon footprints are challenging to fully measure.  While carbon footprints can indicate environmental impact, they don’t necessarily include factors such as biodiversity loss or water pollution.

If you’re calculating carbon footprint for your company, don’t forget to include travel. Examples might include the emissions used for each employee to get to the roastery, flights to attend a World of Coffee expo, or a coffee buyer traveling to a coffee farm.

Several carbon calculators are available online for various supply chain actors, such as Oatly’s calculator for cafes, available here.

5. Why is everyone so focused on “Net Zero”? 

Currently, the Earth is already about 1.2° C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and emissions continue to rise. According to the Paris Agreement – the 2015 international climate treaty – nations shall pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”  To do this, “emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.”

Clearly, we need to do much more since the world emits roughly 40 billion metric tons of carbon each year. So far, 1.3 million tons of carbon have been removed from the atmosphere.

Thus, a focus on “net zero” is one solution.  A net-zero gain of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere may be achieved if the level of GHG emissions released into the atmosphere is equal to the level of emissions that are removed. Sometimes this is called “carbon neutrality.”

Some companies go farther than “Net Zero” with the goal to achieve a “Carbon Negative” footprint.

One coffee example is Kiss the Hippo, London’s first Carbon Negative coffee brand. As they explain:  “We make sure that more CO2 is captured from the environment than is created by our business, resulting in a net positive for the environment.” Read more here about how they achieved this milestone.

6. What is “carbon sequestration”? Does coffee have carbon sequestration potential? 

Let’s look at the CLEAR Research Center at UC Davis for a definition:

Carbon sequestration:  “the process of capturing, securing, and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”

Their website explains the difference between two types of carbon sequestration:  biological and geological.

Several research studies have examined the role of coffee forests in sequestering carbon and mitigating climate change, offering promising solutions for sustainable impact.

Consider an example from a study in Ethiopia: “Contribution of coffee plants to carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems of southwestern Ethiopia” published in 2022 in The Journal of Agricultural Science.

A group of researchers quantified the carbon sequestration potential of coffee agroforestry systems and estimated the contribution of coffee plants to the overall carbon stock of coffee agroforestry systems.

What did they find? Coffee’s carbon sequestration potential depends on the forest’s management system and the type of shade tree. They discovered that “Albizia is the most compatible shade tree for coffee plants. On average, coffee plants contributed 37.5 t C/ha, accounting for approximately 12.8% of the total carbon sequestered in the coffee agroforestry systems. Hence, we recommend coffee forests for all-in-one benefits such as climate change mitigation, sustainable landscape management and income generation.”

For another example, consider a study published in 2024, with research on coffee and carbon sequestration in Peru.

7.What is the difference between “insetting” and “offsetting”?

If an organization is “insetting,” it is identifying and engaging in opportunities to sequester carbon within its own value chain to achieve carbon neutrality.

If an organization is “offsetting,” then it is investing in carbon sequestration outside its own value chain to achieve carbon neutrality.

The goal for both is carbon neutrality (see question #5).

9. This is all so depressing and confusing. Why should I bother thinking about climate solutions? Do we even know if all these carbon strategies are effective?

Let’s begin with the words of Audre Lorde, who once said, “To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it.”

We must change the tone of the climate emergency, and we all have our work to do.

This is not to minimize the typical responses to ongoing climate disasters, despair, and anxieties. Certainly, grief and anger for what we’ve already lost is human.

We can focus on all that’s going wrong (and certainly, there is much to lament), on all that is reversing in the wrong direction, or on change that appears to be going too slowly. But this focus can be paralyzing.

Noticing all of that – we can also choose to look at how far we’ve already come in a short period of time if we consider a longer view of history.

We can choose to focus on examples of solidarity and activism that are going on all around the world.

For a global example:  watch Christiana Figueres 2016 Ted Talk, “The Inside Story of the Paris Climate Agreement,” where she explains how 195 governments negotiated the world’s first-ever coalition where – at first – no one believed such a global agreement could be possible, not even her.  

We can focus on hope – a hope that is not based on the rise and fall of political leaders or CEOs – but instead upon one another, on communities built from everyday superheroes. Rebecca Solnit discusses this in her essay, “Changing the Climate Story,” when she states that the popular narrative of a lone, violent superhero has “little to do with how the world really gets changed most of the time. The skills of real-world superheroes are solidarity, strategy, patience, persistence, vision, and the ability to inspire hope in others.”

I hope this post will inspire us all to continue to practice these skills and virtues even after we’ve collectively met our climate goals.

10. I only see stories of doomsday all around me. Where can I read more about climate optimism?

There are so many writers who are reframing the climate narrative on hope.

This doesn’t mean they – or we – should ignore or minimize the challenges. After all, climate optimism isn’t wishful thinking. It’s grounded in solidarity, reciprocity, perseverance, community action, and, perhaps most of all:  a belief that change is possible.

It’s a belief that our future can be abundant, not an austere dystopia.

If you want proof of reasons to be optimistic, read any of the climate essays of Solnit in her book No Straight Road Takes You There (2025), or anything written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, whose most recent book is the brilliant The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.

Many recently published books focus on justice and hope – giving reasons why a sustainable world doesn’t have to be one of austerity, but one of abundance.

Here’s a place to start for optimist, justice-based climate reading written by diplomats, scientists, educators, and activists:

• The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist’s Guide to the Climate Crisis (2020) by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, leaders of the negotiations for the 2015 Paris Agreement; 
  Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future (2019) by Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland;
• The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go From Here by Hope Jahren (2020);
• The Intersectional Environmentalism: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Plant (2022) by Leah Thomas; 
• Saving Us:  A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (2022) by Katharine Hayhoe;
• Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change around the World by Zahra Biabani (2023).
• Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet (2024) by Hannah Ritchie.
• And there are many more to choose! 

To enroll in Dr. Erika Koss’s Sustainability courses, including her “Climate and Coffee” course, please write to her at AWorldinYourCup@gmail.com. She also posts her courses on her Instagram (@AWorldinYourCup), and on her AST page on the SCA education website.

Academic Articles referenced in this post:

Niguse, G., Iticha, B., Kebede, G., & Chimdi, A. (2022). Contribution of coffee plants to carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems of Southwestern Ethiopia. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 160(6), 440–447. doi:10.1017/S0021859622000624.

Vallejos-Torres G, Gaona-Jimenez N, Pichis-García R, Ordoñez L, García-Gonzales P, Quinteros A, Lozano A, Saavedra-Ramírez J, Tuesta-Hidalgo JC, Reategui K, Macedo-Córdova W, Baselly-Villanueva JR, and Marín C (2024) Carbon reserves in coffee agroforestry in the Peruvian Amazon. Frontiers in Plant Science. 15:1410418. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1410418.