Carbon Coffee

One Tall Skim Caramel Macchiato… With Room for Carbon

Did you know that your daily dose of caffeine can actually add up to a hefty carbon footprint over the course of year?  Statistically, if you drink four cups of black tea a day you will basically contribute 30kg of CO2e a year, or a 40 mile drive down the freeway.  If you drink three lattes a day for the next year, you’ll use the equivalent amount of carbon as flying halfway to England. That’s some serious addition. Multiply that over a couple years and you might as well fly yourself around the world in a jet plane.

According to Mike Berners-Lee as referencing his book How Bad Are Bananas, the actual breakdown looks something like this:

• 1 cup black tea/coffee               21g CO2e
• 1 cup white tea or coffee           53g CO2e 
• 1 cup white tea or coffee           71g CO2e

(boiling twice the water needed)

• 1 large cappuccino                 235 CO2e
• 1 large latte                            340 CO2e

You’ll notice the kicker here involves the caffeinated beverages with the addition of milk.  Adding dairy to any one espresso drink is equivalent to 2/3 of the entire drink’s footprint, and the milk alone accounts for more than boiling the water and cultivating the tea/coffee combined.  However, it should be noted that this is assuming the milk is dairy and coming from cows (large producers of methane).

So, what do we do?  Give up coffees and lattes and cappuccinos?  Not likely.  But, there are some options available to lessen the impact.  The easiest way, obviously, is to avoid adding frothed milk and creamer to your beverage of choice.  When it comes to carbon and caffeine, black is best.  If that just isn’t an option, consider trying soy milk or almond milk.  Knowing a latte has four to five times the carbon that a cup of black coffee has, see if you can stand to cut the milk in half and cut your carbon impact in two every day.

Another easy way to bring down your contribution is to watch out for that boiling water.  If you boil only as much as you need (face it, how often do we do that?), you can knock off approximately 20g with every drink.  An easy way to get the right amount is to fill your mug with water first and then put that in the kettle. Boil only till it’s boiling, and then cut the heat. Skip the microwave and go for the stove-top, the least carbon-producing way to boil water. 

If you purchase your own coffee, you can search out coffee beans coming from coffee roasters who have zero or even negative carbon footprints.  One of the best examples is Tiny Footprint Coffee, a coffee roasting company that boasts “Carbon Negative Coffee.” With each pound of coffee sold, Tiny Footprint pays for 54 pounds of carbon offset, which creates a difference of 50 pounds and ensures that their coffee beans have a negative impact.

None of this is to say that you should stop drinking coffee and tea or even the occasional latte.  But it hopefully challenges you to look for some ways to bring that number down a little bit.  After all, if you’re going to skip the morning commute and walk to work in an attempt to lower your carbon footprint, I’d hate to think you entirely canceled it out by grabbing that extra large Mocha on the way.

Author Tara Alley is a freelance writer who enjoys blogging and writing about finding creative ways to live more sustainably.  You can follow her on Twitter @hopesiempre.