During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland last week, Swiss banker Hubert Keller said coffee production is bad for the environment and is exacerbating climate change.
"The coffee that we all drink emits between 15 and 20 tons of CO2 per ton of coffee," he said. "Every time we drink coffee, we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere."
This assessment came after another WEF speaker described fishing and farming as environmentally destructive activities. The same speaker advocated for destructive activities to be recognized as "ecocide" under new international laws that would punish crimes against nature in the same way genocide is prosecuted. The WEF has also advocated for plant-based diets, the widespread use of electric vehicles, and the introduction of "tiny homes" to replace traditional dwellings.
Keller went on: "And one of the reasons is because most of the coffee plantation or most of the coffee is produced through monoculture and monoculture is also affected by climate change... The quality of these natural assets is deteriorating quite rapidly."
Keller is a managing partner of global wealth management firm Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, a bank deeply committed to Environmental, Social, and corporate Governenace (ESG) philosophy. But he is not the first person at the WEF to attribute climate change to coffee.
In 2016, the WEF put out a blog post about the deleterious environmental effects of coffee cups, single-serve coffee pods, and other things related to coffee consumption. "Is your coffee addiction destroying the planet?" the WEF asked.
Watch Keller's statement below:
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If the vegans are gonna b-word about meat I'm gonna b-word about coffee.
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