As you may have heard, it’s Lent! For this season I’ve teamed up with International Justice Mission to highlight modern slavery in supply chains, and this year they’ve asked people to give up coffee, chocolate or make up for the 40 days of Lent (if you’re interested, I’m giving up coffee, which is easy for me, and chocolate, which is NOT). During this period I’ll be talking about these three areas, where the problems lie, and how we can shop better. The reality is that 40 million people are in slavery worldwide, making items like these that we buy every day. IJM works to implement concrete solutions at the source, and I’m here to talk about things that we can do at a consumer level. I strongly believe in the power of combining individual consumption, collective action and policy change, which is why I love this Lent campaign as it brings together all three.

So, let’s talk about coffee.

I think there’s two main areas we want to think about when we’re talking ethical coffee:

The company

There’s an enormous difference between the coffee industry as a whole and the specialty coffee sector. The coffee industry as a whole is overwhelmingly dominated by large, multinational companies which supply cheap, generic products in supermarkets. Specialty coffee roasters make up an incredibly small percentage of the industry and are intimately involved in the entire coffee cycle — from farming, to processing and roasting. 

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This generally means that the least ethical coffee will be from large corporations (both in terms of coffee in stores and coffee shop chains), and is normally instant. This is because the organisation’s main priorities are efficiency and profit: keeping production costs low whilst making coffee as quickly and cheaply as possible, with no real regard for human and environmental welfare, or the quality of the product. It’s exactly the same as fast fashion, which often results in unfair wages, poor treatment and issues of slavery:

‘The farmers growing this coffee will try to obtain cheap labour — often exploiting children and other workers on their plantations. These farmers clear all native trees in order to grow as many coffee trees as possible, and use the cheapest synthetic pesticides and herbicides. This is a good reason to avoid cheap, supermarket coffee — not only does it taste bad, but the farmers get a really bad deal.’ 

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So, unsurprisingly, big chain coffee is bad for everyone; customer, supplier and farmer alike. The only ones who benefit are the (already incredibly wealthy) corporations and CEOs.

The great thing is that moving away from this type of coffee is a bit of a ‘two birds one stone’ situation. Not only will you be avoiding coffee produced through exploitation and getting better quality coffee, but using beans instead of instant also creates a lot less waste, uses up less plastic (especially from those dang instant pods) and often converts investment into organic farming where native trees are also left alone, so the environment gets some handy benefits too.

Certifications (or lack thereof)

When we think of drinking coffee that’s ethical, many of us will be the most familiar with the Fairtrade label, which pays producers a “fair trade” above market price provided they meet specified labor, environmental, and production requirements. Since its conception in the 1980s Fairtrade has become a prominent name in the world of ethical food and drink. However, there is room for improvement.

The Fairtrade system isn’t designed as well as it could be, and past studies from Harvard and the University of Wisconsin suggest that Fairtrade coffee’s affects on coffee growers could be improved; especially for the poorest in the supply chain, or for overall poverty reduction. This is how Fairtrade is set up to work:

  • Growers belong to a selected group of overseas producer co-ops
  • They are paid a minimum of $1.40 per pound (of Arabica beans) that are able to be sold, this is known as a ‘price floor’ and means that the price charged cannot be lower than this
  • If the market price rises above the price floor, growers receive the market price as well as a premium that is sent back for investment in the co-op and local community
  • In order to receive this price, growers have to pay to become certified, join a co-op, agree to standard practices on use of fertilisers/pesticides, and pay coffee labourers fairly

Unfortunately, this system can fail for reasons which you can read about here and here The most pressing, however, is that Fairtrade certification doesn’t guarantee a removal of slavery from the supply chain. This is mainly due to poor monitoring which is a vital part of operating a certification system.

The most stark example is the recent controversy over Fairtrade and the payment of a living wage to coffee workers on smallholder farms in Ethiopia and Uganda. Research from SOAS  found that the Fairtrade Foundation is unable to ensure that all workers get paid a living wage. Most coffee is produced by smallholders who employ some workers – the latter tend to be the worst paid. This is partly because their employers are poor themselves, and also because it is hard to police what happens on thousands of tiny farms… Fairtrade Foundation standards do not regulate wages if a smallholder employs less than a “significant number” of workers, which is generally interpreted to mean 20. If they employ fewer than 20, they aren’t even required to pay the legal minimum wage.

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The reason this isn’t more well known? Fairtrade has some really strong marketing out there, even I didn’t know much about this before I started looking into it, although I’m not a huge coffee drinker so it wasn’t a massive part of my day to day life.

Asides from this, Fairtrade can also do a lot of damage to poor farmers, who have to pay a considerable amount of money to join up and organise their businesses in ways that might not work for producers in the poorest countries. (source)

This is not to say that all Fairtrade coffee is inherently exploitative, after all it has been a huge catalyst for change and awareness, especially in its beginnings. There is good Fairtrade coffee out there, we simply need to dig a little deeper under the surface sometimes, as being certified Fairtrade doesn’t make coffee perfect. There are great Fairtrade options out there, we just need to think critically and look for a little more information. 

To avoid confusion, here are some of the other accreditations you may see floating around the coffee world (taken from The Guardian’s 2015 article):

UTZ

This accreditation scheme covers both environmental issues and workers’ rights. Its code of conduct is based on International Labour Organisation conventions and they work with the standards of the global sustainability standard association, the ISEAL Alliance. There is no floor price as per Fairtrade certified commodities. In the UK, Douwe Egberts, Burger King and IKEA are among those using this accreditation for coffee.

Rainforest Alliance

Also members of ISEAL, for growers to be certified they must adhere to a list of sustainable principles, including conserving local wildlife and water resources, minimising soil erosion and treating workers fairly. However, the Rainforest Alliance also does not guarantee a minimum price for suppliers. Around 75 brands use this label in the UK, including Costa, Lavazza and Kenco.

Proudly Made in Africa

The “value added” model addresses some models that don’t focus sufficiently on producer countries taking responsibility for processing. Finished products command much higher prices than raw agricultural produce, and being able to get that added value may be one of the most critical factors in enabling producers to escape from poverty.

Proudly Made in Africa is a new label focused on this issue, and certifies products as produced entirely in the countries where the original crops were grown. It is not yet widely available in the UK, but has certified coffee brands like Solino and Out of Africa.