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Carbon Footprint across the Coffee Supply Chain: The Case of Costa Rican Coffee



Author(s)

Bernard Killian, Lloyd Rivera, Melissa Soto and David Navichoc

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DOI:10.17265/2161-6264/2013.03B.001

The issue of carbon emissions has been on the corporate sustainability agenda for some years. For those working in agricultural supply chains, the challenges remain significant, given the diverse direct and indirect emissions occurring throughout the value chain. This study determines the carbon footprint of the supply chain of Costa Rican coffee exported to Europe, using best practice methodology to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. Overall, it was found that the total carbon footprint across the entire supply chain is 4.82 kg CO_2e kg^-1 green coffee. The carbon footprint of the processes in Costa Rica to produce 1 km of green coffee is 1.77 kg CO_2e. The processes within Europe generate 3.05 kg CO_2e kg^-1 green coffee. This carbon footprint is considered as “very high intensity”. This paper also identifies the sources of the most intense emission and discusses mitigation possibilities on which efforts must be focused.

Climate change, carbon footprint, coffee supply chain, Costa Rica.