What proportion of emissions from coffee production is attributable to transport? We have developed a calculator that can compute the emissions from transport for you. The calculator can also be applied to any products that involve a longer transport route, and especially ship or air transport.
Origin of the data
We extracted the data from Mobitool. All values are well-to-wheel data. This means that not only the combustion of fuel is considered, but also the efficiency, i.e., how much of the primary fossil energy carrier is required for the distance traveled. Thus, losses and emissions for fuel provision are also taken into account. However, the maintenance of vehicles and infrastructure, as well as the manufacturing and disposal of vehicles, are not yet included.
Using the calculator
We use the calculator for our own coffees. Using the example of our coffees from Nicaragua, we will show you how we use the calculator.
From the 2021/22 harvest, we purchased 4780 kg from our partner Bridazul in Nicaragua. Part of this comes from our farm Santa Rita, but also from other farms in the Dipilto region in the north of Ocotal. In this case, however, we only consider the transport from the "warehouse," where our coffees were stored in bags, to the port. The transport can therefore be applied to all these coffees. Everything that involves transport before that is considered in the analysis of the farm or green coffee and is included there.
The journey of coffee from Nicaragua to Basel
The warehouse is located in Ocotal, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua, and from there to the port in Corinto is 257 km.
To determine the distances of the transport routes, we use Google Maps for land transport.
The container ship travels via Balboa, Panama, to Manzanillo, Mexico, and then to Antwerp, Belgium.
The transport calculator from searates allows for good calculation of shipping routes. This gives us a total distance of 16742 km via container ship.
Upon arrival at the port in Antwerp, the coffee is loaded onto the next truck and transported the last 600 km to Basel. We then pick it up at the port with our own bus. As with cultivation, the final (kilo-)meters to the roastery are allocated there, as it is our roastery vehicle.
In the picture, you can see how we filled in the fields for our coffee.
Note
The more you know about the means of transport, the more accurate the result can be. Otherwise, you will have to resort to "truck, average" as shown in the example in the picture.
Result
In our case, the largest part of the emissions is due to container ship transport. This is mainly because the coffee has had an odyssey and called at three ports.
Note
If you copy your result into Excel, make sure that the periods in Excel are usually not automatically converted to commas.
Classification
With a footprint of approximately 2.7 tons of CO₂ equivalents for 4.78 tons of green coffee, this results in 0.56 kg CO2e / kg green coffee for transport emissions from Nicaragua to Switzerland.
Let's put the numbers into context and consider cultivation, transport, and roasting. For cultivation, we assume a footprint of 3 kg CO2e/ kg green coffee cultivation and for roasting, our roastery footprint of 0.45 kg CO2e / kg coffee. (More details on our roastery's footprint can be found here.)
Considering a 15% roasting loss, the assumed coffee from Nicaragua causes a total footprint of 4.9 kg CO2e /kg coffee.
This again makes it clear that the alpha and omega for sustainability in coffee means sustainable, regenerative coffee cultivation.
In this case, transport emissions account for only a small part of the chain. However, if we consider a regenerative coffee, then cultivation is climate-neutral (or climate-positive), and these emissions account for over 60%.
So, the coffee itself plays the primary role, but transport is secondary. We roasteries have it in our hands. Alternatives already exist today; they just need to be utilized.
