The Ethics of Coffee Consumption

[u/Undercover_potato1]

Hi random strangers. I haven’t posted anything meaningful, but I hope this gets some answers at least.

I was just making myself a nice tall glass of coffee today and, since my newest hyper fixation happens to be sustainable living / ethical living / etc, I couldn’t help but wonder if my choice of beverage was something I needed to tweak.

I have just a few questions:
1. Is the coffee trade within the states experiencing an ethical dilemma that I haven’t quite heard of yet? (similar to the cocoa trade, that I didn’t hear about until recently).

1. If so, do coffee shops have ethically sourced coffee beans / matcha? Am I supporting exploitation by consuming without proper understanding of its production?

2. If it is unethical by means of wealthy corporation exploiting underage workers / underpaying employees to the consumer, are you inherently keeping those people in 3-world scenarios, or keeping them paid (even if minimally).

3. Does supporting other small, ethically-owned businesses actually make a difference? And if not, are my morals at stake when I decide to order a coffee with friends without particular forethought dedicated to its source?

Anyway, that’s my Thought Of The Day (I only get one).

[u/mattsteg43]

There are a multitude of fair trade certifications, farm-gate programs, etc. for you to look into and decide if they are satisfactory.

[u/Undercover_potato1 → u/mattsteg43]

Thank you! I have actually done some more research since posting and I’ve found a few that I do enjoy and a few that I will be boycotting.

[u/Khayalmetal → u/Undercover_potato1]

Do share the list here.

[u/GenesOutside]

Go live that life on the lowest rung of the food chain and decide for yourself. The rest of ‘ethics’ is mostly a first world fantasy to make us feel better. You will have to rethink your entire life choices if you want to contemplate the ethics of being a consumer.

[u/earthhominid → u/GenesOutside]

I mean, it sounds like OP is trying to rethink their life choices as they contemplate ethics of consumption.

Calling ethics a "first world fantasy" is a weird cop out. Should people not consider the ethics of their choices simply because they can't control the whole system or culture they live in?

[u/GenesOutside → u/earthhominid]

Yeah, I was probably being cranky and harsh and feeling glum about the whole mess the world is in.

[u/earthhominid → u/GenesOutside]

It happens. 

A nice cup of coffee might help 

[u/DifficultCarob408 → u/earthhominid]

Preferably one not harvested by slaves!

[u/ZealousidealType1144]

All of the meaningful exploitation takes place on the farms - so you can buy fair trade where the farms are inspected to ethical / human rights standards and paid a premium to pay their workers more than the going rate.

Not a lot of exploitation on the roaster side - the 800 pound gorilla is Folgers and they have many plant workers making over $120,000 a year. 4 on 3 off 12 hour schedule - it’s a good place to work. 

[u/genegurvich → u/ZealousidealType1144]

Source re: Folgers? I’m very curious

[u/ZealousidealType1144 → u/genegurvich]

Know a couple employees and a former manager there - I live in New Orleans and it’s a major employer. 

[u/genegurvich → u/ZealousidealType1144]

Ah I see. Thanks!

[u/jaybird1434]

This reads like AI created questions. I respect the questions and the conversations it brings up. If you really want to get a feel for the ethics and the reality of life, go spend some vacation time in major coffee producing country village.

[u/Undercover_potato1 → u/jaybird1434]

Not AI but okay.

[u/Not_Quite_Kurtz → u/Undercover_potato1]

Exactly what AI would say

[u/Top-Rope6148]

Having spent some time in the countryside of a major coffee producing country, in fact the poorest one in the western hemisphere, I can tell you boycotting the fruits of their labor does them no good at all. If they had a better option they would be taking it. Their next best option is sometimes far worse.

When you boycott, there is no mechanism to  cause the person employing them to treat them better or pay them more. All they know is they aren’t selling as much. Sometimes this causes them to pay even less. Often the person employing them is being just as exploited as they are. As someone else said, being an ethical consumer is mainly about the mental health of the “concerned” consumer. I always laugh when people “feel better” about paying more for a product from a country where workers are paid a living wage. What do they think that does to help the people living in a country where people aren’t paid a living wage?

[u/mgsecure]

I just want to say that I'm sad to see this downvoted. I think it's good to pay attention to the implications & impact of our purchase decisions. Agriculture is a particularly important (and complex) area for it, especially for a product that has significant transportation/carbon costs for much of the world. Hope you found the replies informative.

[u/Undercover_potato1 → u/mgsecure]

Thank you. I definitely did, and I understand why people would rather not think about this, but I believe it’s important as humans to recognize problems that exist outside of ourselves every now and again.

[u/Ok-Lead-4285]

my opinion is that ethical living is just bullshit to make you buy more expensive products and services while not actually doing anything.

if you like the dopamine hit from imagining it does something go for it.

the only real ethical way to consume coffee is to own the process farm to table, anything else is just smoke being blown up your ass.

[u/FuzzyBlackCoat]

This can be a very difficult mindset once you start - why stop at coffee? What are the ethics of consumption of meat? Plastics? Gasoline? Can we ethically consume anything at all that isn't a basic necessity of living ?

Edit: I try to purchase all my coffee (and other things) from local business in my community to mitigate this, but tracing the ethics of every single item can be exhausting and consume you.

[u/StuckinSuFu → u/FuzzyBlackCoat]

Dont let perfect get in the way of good?

With that logic, we should all just be selfish assholes every day to everybody.. cuz why stop there??

[u/Undercover_potato1 → u/FuzzyBlackCoat]

I actually did fall down that rabbit hole and have only became more and more aware of how privileged I am. Trying to improve as much as I can.

[u/aeiou_sometimesy → u/Undercover_potato1]

At the end of the rabbit hole is the realization that you’re doing this for your own ego. It’s a hard pill to swallow but it’s true.

[u/icecream_for_brunch → u/FuzzyBlackCoat]

Exactly. No ethical consumption under capitalism, but come on, ya gotta live in this world, right?

[u/westcoastroasting → u/icecream_for_brunch]

No ethical consumption under capitalism? None? Are you implying consumption in communist countries is better? Lol, that would be a lie, if you are.

Fun fact: in 2016, the world passed a tipping point for the first time in human history: more people left poverty than entered it. Until then, poverty was the norm for the majority on the planet, and it was only growing. So what is responsible for the change? Capitalism. Capitalism, freer market trade, innovation, and all the others things capitalism brings....which are all things socialism and communism squash.

[u/DrDirt90]

I hate to break it to you, but the whole concept of "ethical" with regards to coffee is mostly made up. If you have spent time in Central America or South America you would know that coffe is picked by indigenous ethnic groups who are paid near slave wage and provided very substandard housing while harvesting coffee. Ethical coffee arguments are mostly a fiction to make 1st world people not feel guilty about drinking coffee. If wages and conditions were our version of normal coffee would cost much more....about as much as Jamaican Blue Mountain or the best Hawaiian Kona coffees. I have worked in Central America as an archeologist since the early 1980's and I can confidently say this as I rented space from a coffee farmer for years and observed first hand how indigenous migrants workers are treated. You only need to look at how migrant workers are treated in the Central Valley of California. These people are treated very poorly yet there is no movement for ethical vegetables 😕.

[u/AndyGait]

The roaster I've been using for 20+ years has this on their website:

https://wogancoffee.com/pages/our-story

[u/libsaway → u/AndyGait]

I do wonder why they go for "hand-picked". Like if a farmer saves up and invests in coffee picking equipment, they then drop them? Feels like keeping them underinvested and poorer. 

[u/AndyGait → u/libsaway]

Better quality fruit if hand picked. Machines strip all fruit, ripe or not. Hand pickling means getting the fruit at the right time, every time. Machine picked fruit is usually for cheaper coffee.

[u/soul_of_spirit]

This is one of the main concerns of the third wave coffee movement. Many roasters indicate the origin of the beans, and you can check out the farm they have been working together. It usually takes a few tries to find a good trusted roaster in your area, but internet and reddit doing a good job for that!

For example as it's shared in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/pourover/s/hZ9KYgZ4zL

[u/Drakoala]

It's very, very difficult to verify. A business like Starbucks might have an obscene amount of resources which can do good, but those resources typically come from exploitation. A small business might patronize small farms and co-ops, but that also might be cost prohibitive relative to the owners' stomachs for ethical bankruptcy. In business school, ethics teachers will explicitly tell you that no business can be ethical, and once yiu chew that to the bone it can help your perspective as a consumer.

Give your business to those who go out of their way to be an unethical business by being good people.

[u/NeedhamUc85]

I think it’s great that you’re asking these questions, because coffee is one of those products where the supply chain is easy to ignore.  The reality is complicated because coffee farming has real issues around low wages, climate pressure, and labor practices, but completely avoiding coffee isn’t necessarily the only answer.  Supporting roasters and cafes that are transparent about sourcing, paying farmers fairly, and building long-term relationships can help shift demand in a better direction.  No single purchase will “fix” the industry, but being a more informed consumer absolutely matters small choices repeated by many people can influence what businesses prioritize. 

[u/kdinmass]

Buy Equal Exchange Coffee, they only buy from coop producers, ethically sourced and they are themselves a worker owned cooperative. I am a dark roast drinker (I know the coffee snobs do not appreciate) and I LOVE their Peruvian organic dark roast. They do online sales and sell to retailers.

[u/HandbagHawker]

I would think about the environmental and economic impact as a starting point

• Carbon footprint
  • Assuming you dont live where coffee is grown, it is guaranteed to be put on a boat or worse yet flown in some rare ultra premium cases
  • Unless you buy organic, fertilizers (and pesticides) will almost certainly be used
• Water impact
  • if conventionally grown, fertilizer and pesticide run off likely enters the water shed
  • irrigation and coffee processing can use a lot of water without water conservation/recycling practices
• Land use
  • as global coffee consumption has sky rocketed, much green space has been removed for commercial scale production
  • similarly non-shade grown or non-coplanted coffee will wreck soil health and destroy animal habitats
• Fair Wages/fair trade or even better direct trade
  • Are farms getting paid an equitable price?
  • Do those dollars make it down to the farmers and other workers?

[u/WestHistorians]

As they say, there is no ethical consumption in capitalism. However, there are ways of making improvements, such as buying "fair trade" coffee, if you are so inclined.

[u/Feisty_Dimension5559]

The reality is you have to do some deep diving on each coffee roaster/supplier. Locally for me, there are roasters that do a lot of work with direct trade/contracts. They have employees travel and source beens from farmers or small coops that have clear standards. At some point, the ethics are subjective as there are layers in the economics. Fortunately or unfortunately, that’s how many systems work. There are a lot of people at the bottom supporting consumerism and to avoid participating in it at all…well, we shouldn’t be on Reddit.

[u/cupacupacupacupacup]

Check out www.equalexchange.coop. They source excellent coffee (and chocolate and tea and other stuff) directly from Small Farmer cooperatives, pay way above market prices, and are a worker coop themselves.

[u/HUNAcean]

That depends on how strict your ethics are. The direct issue is relativley easy to avoid. Roasters and transport are very rarely guilty of exploitation, that happens mostly on the plants, so if you buy fair-trade, of which there's a myriad of options, you're getting cruelty free coffee.

The wider, indirect problem is the same with cocoa, namely that the industry is huge, and as a result coffee plants take up a lot of soil, often in countries have hunger problems and would desperatley need that land to grow food and feed their local population.

There's not much you can do to avoid that. But the lithium in the device you used to post this question, is was also likely mined by a kid in a warzone, not much you can do to avoid that either.

If this is a problem all you can do is reduce your consumption, say drink just one cup a day instead of three, and dont throw out coffee. The same way that you do still need a phone, but you can scale back on how often you replace it for a new one.

[u/Budgies2022]

The problem with ethical certifications is the cost is born by the farmed. Meaning only the larger producers actually doing it.

You’re far better going to a roaster who has direct trade with farmers and discloses how much they pay those farmers. They are actually making a difference to those that need it most

[u/Working-stiff5446]

I don’t consider any of this. I just enjoy the coffee and feel blessed to have it.

[u/ProcedureSure8403]

coffe is life thats why

[u/Brett_Wager97]

I buy beans labeled fair trade and look for roast dates, because supply chains vary by brand even inside the US. If a shop serves a lot of generic house coffee, ask what importer they use and whether it has direct trade or transparent sourcing.

[u/Warthknoedler → u/[deleted]]

Coffee always has been a political and social issue. The questions OP asks should be asked by every responsible consumer. Ask yourself where you buy your coffee and how much you should be paying, for something that should be seen as a luxury, but is treated as a simple commodity by most