Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solís praised the efforts of coffee mills participating in the country´s Coffee NAMA throughout the year during a small ceremony on 13 December 2017.
49 mills received an award for successfully measuring greenhouse gas and water consumption during coffee production and processing. The Coffee NAMA is implemented by the Costa Rican Ministries for Environment and Agriculture and the National Coffee Institute and receives financial support on behalf of the NAMA Facility.
49 coffee mills completed the process of determining their greenhouse gas (GHG) and – in the case of – water consumption inventories including their mill and their coffee farm into the scope. Coffee production and processing account for the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the coffee sector, making their optimization crucial for reducing the sectors overall emissions: fertilizers generate 60% of GHG emissions on the farm level, while between 30 and 40% are caused by organic waste from coffee processing.
This process was initiated in 2016 with 34 mills, which initially focused only on their GHG inventories. In addition to finishing these measurements in 2017, they also took on the task of measuring their water consumption during coffee processing. 15 new mills tackled their mill´s carbon footprint as well.
Currently, the mills are using this data to determine possible mitigation and reduction measures to implement in coffee production and processing in order to reduce GHG emissions and optimize water use. In the upcoming year the Coffee NAMA will focus on providing support and follow-up visits for mills to successfully implement identified activities and measures. Additionally, it will focus on the topic of performing a life cycle analysis as a first step towards obtaining an internationally recognized eco-label for low-carbon coffee from Costa Rica.
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and Minister for Agriculture Felipe Arauz both praised the efforts of the country´s coffee sector and highlighted the sector´s important role as a motivator for future endeavors in other sectors.
The activities for the participating coffee mills were carried out in the scope of the NAMA Support Project “Low Carbon Coffee Costa Rica” which offers financial and technical support to the Costa Rican Coffee NAMA. The Support Project Café aims to reach over 6.000 coffee producers and at least 50 coffee mills on 25.000 hectares that implement at least two low-carbon practices or technologies on their farm or mill by the end of the project in 2019. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH implements the Support Project Café with financial funding of the NAMA Facility, a joint project of the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) and the British Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
The Coffee NAMA is implemented by the national Ministries for Environment and Agriculture and the National Coffee Institute in the scope of the country´s Nationally Determined contributions in order to reach carbon neutrality and contribute to the international dialog on climate change.
Find out more about the Support Project Coffee.
