Locally-roasted Goshen coffee.
Written and published July 2015 by Olivia Engel, Green Dining Alliance Program Coordinator
St. Louis sees local roasters promoting their dark, caffeine-packed beans at cafés and restaurants in almost every neighborhood. Americans tend to view coffee shops as bastions of liberalism. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to sustainable coffee.
The variety of eco-friendly certifications and labels can be hard to navigate, especially since most of us North Americans are unfamiliar with growing, harvesting, and roasting practices associated with coffee.
The Green Dining Alliance encourages sustainable choices for St. Louis’ restaurant owners and diners, so we’ve put together a sustainability guide* for you, as well as a list of sustainable roasters here in town.
*Important note: This post only addresses the sustainability issues surrounding coffee itself – it does not address milk, milk alternatives, disposable cups, or sweeteners.
In general, reducing dairy (and almond!) intake while carrying reusable mugs with you to cafés are two simple actions that greatly lessen your footprint. See this video by the World Wildlife Fund for more ideas.
How Well Do You Know Coffee?
Or, jump straight to the roaster list or a guide to common certifications for coffee.
It’s important to remember what coffee really is: each little “bean” is a berry from a shrub that grows in rainforests and groves near the equator. We all know we are supposed to ‘save the rainforest;’ well, coffee comes from places where jungles are often threatened by unsustainable agricultural practices. And coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world – second only to petroleum.
Coffee doesn’t grow anywhere near St. Louis – not for thousands of miles. That’s one of the reasons coffee is a luxury good. And as with any luxury good, sustainability can be trickier to come by. The coffee we drink every day comes from Central America at its closest, and as far away as Sumatra and Java (roughly a 30-hour non-stop flight from our Gateway City).
Plus, Americans drink a lot of coffee – more than most places in the world per capita – and more than anyone in total pounds, at 1,290,720 metric tons a year!
Therefore, rewarding coffee roasters that have sustainability initiatives built into their business models makes a huge impact. It encourages this powerful market in the right direction.
Another factor to consider is the economic and social stability of the farms themselves. It’s hard to know what’s happening on a coffee plantation that’s 14 thousand miles away. Who are the humans behind your morning brew?
Vietnamese women harvesting coffee berries at a (photo credit->) Rainforest Alliance-certified location.
26 million people worldwide work to harvest and prepare coffee. Coffee isn’t supposed to be cheap – it’s very labor- and energy-intensive to pick each bean by hand, keep flavors consistent, dry them precisely, and ship them across the planet.
Chances are, if the coffee you’re looking at is inexpensive, corners have been cut at the expense of the environment and the farmers picking the crop.
Certifications for Sustainable Beans
When choosing eco-friendly coffee beans for your establishment or home kitchen, here some the key phrases and certifications to look for: (in order of preference*)
Fair Trade-certified. In opposition to ‘free trade,’ this third-party certifier works to ensure that workers have adequate rights and care. Environmental sustainability cannot be disentangled from social sustainability, and vice versa.- “Shade-grown.” This descriptor, particularly when backed with a third party certification, is possibly the best indicator of very low environmental impact coffee. Shade-grown coffee farms allow soil and biodiversity to flourish. All Rainforest Alliance farms are shade-grown.
- Rainforest Alliance-certified. Like Fair Trade, this certification guarantees that coffee farms maintain wildlife habitat and other environmental benefits, while also protecting the livelihoods of coffee farmers. There are some valid concerns about this certification’s conflict of interest, as its financial support links to Kraft, Chiquita, and other ‘Big Food’ companies* – but not to coffee producers.
- USDA Organic-certified. This sticker will assure you that the coffee is being grown without synthetic fertilizers, fungicides, or pesticides. However, some fertilizers that come from organic materials can be more harmful than synthetic ones.
- “Direct trade/Direct relationship.” Some roasters choose to develop relationships directly with coffee farms, giving them an in-depth sense of the plantation’s practices and people and eliminating the middle-men to ensure a higher percentage of the money gets to the farmers themselves. *Direct trade does not guarantee sustainability, but it should indicate that the roaster can tell you what’s happening in the fields. In some cases, this relationship is indicative of the most dependable and sustainable coffee operations.
Roasting Locally, Thinking Globally
Who’s who in StL? Take a look at this list of responsible local roasters:
Art House Coffees
What started as a home-roasting coffee hobby became a way to both foster long-lasting jobs for people with disabilities as well as provide sustainable, fine coffee.
Chauvin Coffee
Chauvin is the longest-standing coffee roaster in the city, now in its fourth generation. Not all beans are sustainable; request their Rainforest Alliance-certified beans and Fair Trade beans from La Minita.
Goshen Coffee
This roaster makes Edwardsville proud, with 100% certified Organic- and Fair Trade-certified coffee.
Hartford Coffee Company
Hartford has many options for coffee beans – be sure to request their Fair Trade varieties.
Kaldi’s Coffee
Kaldi’s is offers some few organic, Fair Trade options, and “Relationship Coffees” that promote social sustainability and environmental stewardship.
While all their beans are Fair Trade, their special Café Peru Chilcos reigns sustainably-supreme in STL: partnering with the Missouri Botanical Gardens, a direct-trade relationship with shade-grown, organic, Fair Trade farmers resulted in this delicious “conservation crop.”
La Cosecha Coffee Roasters
The folks at La Cosecha (“the harvest”) purchase almost exclusively Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade, Organic, and UTZ-certified beans.
Park Avenue Coffee
The most energy efficient roasting operation in the Midwest, with beans coming from a direct relationship with the socially and environmentally sustainable Hacienda La Minita collective, STL can choose a roasting company that produces as much electricity as it consumes with its massive solar array.
Stringbean Coffee Company
Like Kuva, Stringbean got its start at farmers’ markets and now sells at many cafes and grocery stores. All of their beans are Fair Trade-certified.
Sump Coffee
This artisan South City joint recently began roasting their own beans. The roaster has a direct trade relationship with high qualify coffee farms, meaning that the standards for stewardship – as well as pay for the farmers – is higher and more consistent. Some of their beans also have organic certifications.
Do you roast eco-friendly coffee but your name is missing? Email Olivia at olivia@greendiningalliace.org – we want your name up here.
*Correction: this article originally presented Rainforest Alliance (RFA) certification as #1 in the list of preferred third-party certifiers of sustainability in coffee. However, upon further investigation, criticisms of RFA show conflicts of interest and lack of transparency throughout the organization’s structure, so we’re not as confident. While RFA certification is still better than nothing – and RFA’s practices may vary between crops (there are no large coffee companies funding RFA) – tread with caution regarding the claims of large companies touting RFA’s frog logo, like Lipton tea and Chiquita bananas.
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Want to go further down the rabbit hole?
Getting down to the finer grind
Since coffee is planted, grown, harvested, dried, sorted, packaged, shipped, most often shipped again, roasted, and then sold, there are many considerations to take into account. Let’s take a look at how each little coffee berry can measure up:
1. How was this item grown?
Most of those key certifications and phrases listed above apply to this issue. You want to be sure that your coffee comes from a farm that doesn’t pollute, clear-cut rain forests for monocrop farming, or exploit its workers.
2. How was this item processed?
Unfortunately, the water and heat used to roast a consistent batch of coffee can be very steep. Coffee beans can be dried and even roasted in the sun, but this is a high-risk method with a smaller yield, and most coffee-drinkers around the world are unaccustomed to its flavor.
So, know that your coffee required energy and water just to taste the way it does. Decaffeinated coffee requires more water and energy than regular coffee, so opting for Organic, Fair Trade white, red, or herbal tea is a more sustainable choice if you are avoiding caffeine.
3. How was/is this item packaged?
Here’s some good news – coffee tends to be shipped in canvas bags, and a lot of those bags get re-used. Once roasted, however, you’ll often find coffee in plastic 1lb lined bags, which are not recyclable with their mix of materials. However, you can save them to take to Local Harvest Grocery, which offers sustainable, local coffee roasters in bulk.
4. How far has this item traveled?
Sometimes even “locally roasted” coffee has been shipped to several countries before it reaches the shelf, using more and more petroleum per pound. For example, we can only thank Italy for introducing us to espresso because of their colonial ties to Ethiopia, where coffee grows well and offers a distinct flavor. Many of the Ethiopian beans we consume are shipped first to Italy, then to New York, then to Chicago, and only then to St. Louis or Kansas City!
Finding the most direct route from farm to table is best for the environment as well as for flavor.
5. How was/is this item stored?
Good news here again, as well! Coffee is not supposed to be kept at very hot or cold temperatures. Never overheat your fresh beans, expose them to too much light, keep them in the refrigerator, or freeze them!
Therefore, a bag of coffee beans, whether green or roasted, is probably being stored at room temperature. When choosing the right coffee for your restaurant or household, you want the freshest bean available. So, in essence, while you may pay more for fresh coffee, you’re actually getting a better value. You’ll be tasting a higher quality coffee, while potentially lessening your impact on the environment.
Here are a few of of our sources, if you’re eager to learn more:
– Lexington Coffee Roaster’s list of certifications
– Global Exchange: Coffee FAQ
