What is the share of transport in the emissions generated during coffee production? We have developed a calculator that can compute your transport emissions. The calculator can also be applied to any products that involve a longer transport route, and in particular ship or air transport.
Origin of the data
We obtained the data from the Mobitool. All values are well-to-wheel data. This means that not only the combustion of fuel is taken into account, but also the efficiency — that is, how much fossil primary energy is required for the distance traveled. This also includes losses and emissions for fuel provision. However, vehicle and infrastructure maintenance, as well as vehicle manufacturing and disposal, are not yet included.
Using the calculator
We use the calculator for our own coffees. Using our coffees from Nicaragua as an example, we show you how we use the calculator.
From the 2021/22 harvest, we purchased 4,780 kg from our partner Bridazul in Nicaragua. Part of it comes from our Santa Rita farm, but also from other farms in the Dipilto region north of Ocotal. In this case, however, we only consider the transport from the "warehouse" where our coffees are stored in bags to the port. The transport can thus be applied to all these coffees. Any transport that occurs before that is included in our consideration of the farm or green coffee and calculated there.
The journey of coffee from Nicaragua to Basel
The warehouse is located in Ocotal, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. From there to the port in Corinto is 257 km.
To determine the distances of the transport routes, we use Google Maps for the overland route.
The container ship travels via Balboa, Panama, to Manzanillo, Mexico, and then to Antwerp, Belgium.
With the transport calculator from searates, shipping routes can be calculated easily. This gives us a total distance of 16,742 km via container ship.
Once the coffee arrives at the port in Antwerp, it is loaded onto the next truck and transported the final 600 km to Basel. We then pick it up ourselves with our own bus at the port. As with cultivation, the last (kilo-)meters go to the roastery and are charged there, as it is our roastery vehicle.
In the image, 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, as in the example in the image, you will need to fall back on "truck, average."
Result
In our case, the largest share of emissions comes from transport by container ship. This is mainly because the coffee has gone on quite a journey and called at three ports.
Note
If you copy your result into Excel, be aware that periods are usually not automatically converted to commas in Excel.
Classification
With a footprint of approximately 2.7 tonnes of CO₂ equivalents for the 4.78 tonnes 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 in 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. (You can find more details about our roastery's footprint here.)
Taking into account 15% roasting loss, the assumed coffee from Nicaragua produces a total footprint of 4.9 kg CO2e / kg coffee.
This makes it clear that sustainability in coffee is fundamentally about sustainable, regenerative coffee cultivation.
In this case, transport emissions make up only a small part of the chain. But if we consider regenerative coffee, then cultivation is climate-neutral (or climate-positive), and then these emissions account for over 60%.
So in the first place it is the coffee that matters, but in the second place the transport as well. We roasters have it in our hands. Alternatives are already available today; they just need to be used.
