Making Coffee Good to the Last Drop: Laying the Foundation for Sustainability in the International Coffee Trade

Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Winter 2004 by Brown, Grace H

Given the flexibility with which labeling schemes can comply with WTO rules, labeling schemes have found favor in the free market. The WTO seemingly tolerates labeling schemes because labels are seen as less trade restrictive measures than traditional legislative and administrative policy measures. Governments tend to support such schemes because labeling provides incentives for producers to lessen the environmental and labor impacts of their products without establishing binding restrictions or direct bans on products that would then potentially come into conflict with WTO discrimination rules.108 Finally, activists are enthusiasts of such schemes and have organized labeling efforts to sway consumer buy ing-power in a variety of product areas. Ethical labeling campaigns are motivated by the idea that to buy is to vote on every purchase made.109 Yet labeling schemes can only be successful if the response to public pressure induced by the labeling schemes is significant enough to change the practices of those who produce the product. A sustainable coffee campaign, consequently, is successful only if enough consumers join in and vote "the same way" to support certain products.

Despite the good intentions of coffee activists, private initiatives by way of voluntary coffee labeling have not garnered a sufficient number of votes "the same way" to truly support sustainable coffee trade because of the overwhelming overabundance of coffee labels available in the market. There are many different kinds of sustainable coffees and corresponding labels available to consumers, of which the shade-grown, organic, bird-friendly, and fair trade coffee labels are the most prominent."0 Given the saturation of the market for coffee labels, often with little distinction among the various labels, some coffee consumers "vote" and buy shade-grown coffee, some consumers "vote" and buy bird-friendly coffee, and some consumers "vote" and buy fair trade coffee, and so on. Meanwhile, most consumers are somewhat oblivious to the differences between the various coffee labels and what these labels represent. Therefore, if sustainable coffee versus non-sustainable coffee were to be turned into an election, the voting ticket for sustainable coffee becomes split among many coffees. This mess of labels makes the message of sustainable coffee jumbled, making none of the activist coffees on the market a clear majority winner in the minds of consumers.111

2. Conflict among Labeling Programs

A quick glance in the coffee aisle of any supermarket will visually demonstrate the many kinds of sustainable coffee available to consumers. But is there really a need for the plethora of sustainable coffees available on the market if the overabundance of labels ultimately retards consumer awareness and lessens support for sustainable coffee as a whole? The answer to this question lies in whether there are truly cognizable and normative differences among the various sustainable coffees marketed by coffee activist groups. Labor and environmental groups, as the primary cheerleaders of sustainable coffee, argue that differences truly exist. Both camps prescribe that their respective coffees are indeed the "true" sustainable coffees, but each side is motivated by different understandings of what actually constitutes the "sustainability" portion of sustainable coffee.