CIRAD conducted a comprehensive review, commissioned by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, assessing the environmental impact of green coffee through Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs). The review examined 34 studies covering 234 coffee systems, highlighting the complexity and variability in measuring the carbon footprint due to factors like land use change, nitrogen fertilizer usage, and processing emissions. It underlines the need for absolute transparency in the supply chain and adherence to standardized guidelines like those of the IPCC for accurate environmental assessments. The findings aim to guide better practices for sustainable coffee cultivation, emphasizing the importance of detailed, region-specific data to improve the accuracy of these assessments.
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