Coffee shops and roasters to help you minimize your carbon footprint
Illustration by Chloe Latour.
Like many Canadians, having my morning coffee is an important ritual to start my day, whether that’s making my own cup from home or heading to one of Victoria’s plentiful cafés.
Coffee is so ingrained in our lives, and it’s easy to forget how this habit affects our carbon footprint. Around 9.5 billion kg of coffee is produced annually. In Canada, coffee is so popular that it beats water as the public’s drink of choice. But many people don’t realize that the coffee industry is one of the least sustainable food and beverage industries on the planet.
It’s estimated that drinking one cup of joe a day for a year straight results in 155 kg of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is equivalent to driving a gas car for 640 km. I know, that’s a lot.
Thankfully there are a lot of local coffee shops working to minimize their environmental impact. Here are four cafés that are making a difference.
Caffe Fantastico
Did you know that the act of roasting coffee beans makes up nearly 15 per cent of the coffee industry’s total emissions? This process can also take up about 79 per cent of café’s total carbon emissions. On top of all of that, traditional gas roasters let out harmful compounds, as well as carbon monoxide, smoke, and dust.
Thankfully there are a few roasters in Victoria that are trying to change this, including one of Victoria’s most popular coffee shops, Caffe Fantastico. Fantastico has three different locations throughout our city, including a roastery. This shop makes it their job to reduce their carbon emissions, specifically when it comes to roasting their coffee.
Caffe Fantastico uses a Loring coffee roaster which was created to lessen its impact on the environment. It’s different from regular roasters because it uses a singular burner. It also eliminates the smoke that’s normally emitted when coffee beans are roasted.
The Loring roaster is built to reduce up to 80 per cent of GHGs for every batch compared to other big roasters. An average café can save almost 38 000 kg of CO₂ emissions each year by using this machine.
Shatterbox Coffee
Shatterbox is another local roasting company that prides themselves on sustainability. Located in the Victoria Public Market, Shatterbox uses a fully automatic and electric coffee roaster called Bellwether.
Bellwether has saved almost 10 million kg of carbon, and this mini, electric machine can reduce 87 per cent of a café’s carbon footprint just from roasting.
The only problem with this machine is it only fits 2.7 kg of beans per roast cycle, compared to some Loring machines that can hold up to 70 kg of beans.
Even though Bellwether is small, it’s mighty, especially for this café. You can feel good about getting your morning cup of coffee at this shop.
Fernwood Coffee
This Victoria roasting company has been around since 2007 and has become another staple in this city. This is a great spot for those who want to lessen their environmental impact as they’re partnered with Offsetters Community — an organization that helps companies reduce their emissions. It does this by assessing companies’ GHGs within a certain time period, usually a year.
According to their website, Fernwood prides itself on doing what they can to reduce their carbon emissions to help the environment, and you can too by getting your caffeine fix from this local roastery.
Habit Coffee
If you have read my previous coffee article, you might remember Habit Coffee. With two shops downtown, this café strives to be a sustainable place to get your coffee.
Habit works with Synergy Enterprises, a Victoria business consultant that specializes in helping companies reduce their GHGs, similar to Offsetters Community.
According to their website, only four per cent of Habit’s products end up in the landfill, and the two cafés combined produce less than half the amount of trash of an average coffee shop. On top of that, their supplies are transported on bikes between the shops, instead of using cars.
Unlike the other cafés on the list, Habit is not a roaster. Instead they receive their coffee from local roaster Bows, which uses ethically sourced coffee beans.
I’m not planning on removing coffee from my routine anytime soon, so thankfully there are many ways to sustainably maintain this habit. At the end of the day, supporting local cafés that focus on sustainability is a great step to minimize your carbon footprint.
