Is my morning coffee climate friendly?

Here’s what to know about your daily brew and the environment

- KATE SELIG

YOU LOVE YOUR morning coffee and you love the planet. So, you might wonder what your caffeine habit means for climate change.

Coffee isn’t a huge climate polluter, but it does produce greenhouse gases. On the high end, a kilogram of roasted coffee can produce 40 kilograms or more of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to Dave White, director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University. That means a single bag of beans can represent the same emissions as driving a few dozen miles in a gas-powered car. We asked the experts about the ground rules for coffee and climate.

The carbon-intensive fruit

The emissions from growing coffee beans are often the biggest contributor to your drink’s carbon footprint. This includes the greenhouse gasses from land-use changes, like cutting down trees, which store planet-warming carbon, to open up farmland. It also includes fertilisers. Making fertilisers generates a lot of emissions, and they produce even more when they’re applied to fields.

Cutting emissions from coffee at this stage of production has proved difficult. The European Union passed a law in 2023 banning imports of coffee and other products produced on deforested land. But in late September, officials postponed its implementation for a second consecutive year amid global backlash, including from coffee-producing countries and businesses who said the documentation required was too onerous.