Latest posts
-
Shade coffee alone doesn’t hold the forest specialists
A Colombian Andes study finds forest specialists need more than 32% forest cover within 2 km. On-farm canopy still helped most other bird guilds.
-
The 11-country effort to breed a tougher coffee tree
World Coffee Research’s Innovea network spans 11 countries and 40% of world supply. The first trees ship in 2027, and seed systems are the real constraint.
-
What the coffee pod life-cycle studies actually compare
A Wageningen assessment ranked compostable, aluminum, and plastic capsules against each other. What it found, and the question it never asked.
-
What honey and sugar each cost to produce
The carbon ranges overlap almost completely. The real differences are land, allocation, and the fact that managed honeybees are livestock, not wildlife.
-
What the EU’s deforestation rules ask of coffee
Geolocated plots, due diligence statements, and a December 31, 2020 cutoff. What the EUDR requires of coffee, and why smallholders carry the weight.
-
Bird Friendly coffee turns 25, and stays small
The Smithsonian marked 25 years of its Bird Friendly seal in August 2025. The scale figures, the standard’s requirements, and why strictness caps adoption.
-
Coffee and its alternatives, measured
Coffee’s footprint is mostly the farm, so every substitute wins by not being coffee. What chicory, barley, matcha, mate and tea actually replace.
-
What shade cover does on a coffee farm
Canopy pays for itself in pest control and soil before it pays anything to birds. What 60-plus studies say about shade coffee, and where the case stops.
-
Why arabica hit a record price — and what climate had to do with it
Arabica futures set records in December 2024 and February 2025. Drought during Brazil’s flowering window and a short Vietnamese crop explain most of it.
-
Milk alternatives, compared
Dairy is worst on emissions and land by a wide margin. Below that the rankings rearrange in every column, and almond, soy, oat and rice each lose somewhere.
-
Most of a latte’s carbon footprint is the milk
Life-cycle assessments agree on the ranking: in a milk drink, the dairy outweighs the coffee. What an LCA counts, and where shipping actually sits.
-
What the coffee certification labels actually require
Four labels, four different promises. What Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Organic, and Bird Friendly each actually require — and where the marketing runs ahead of the standard.