Australia’s Market Development Facility (MDF) is working with Sucafina, a leading sustainable, farm to roaster coffee company to measure and minimise carbon emissions across its coffee value chain in PNG.
MDF’s partnership with Sucafina is part of a portfolio of work supporting climate change mitigation initiatives and sustainable business models.
Through the partnership Sucafina is developing a customised data template and calculator for quantifying the carbon footprint of its coffee supply chain – from smallholder farmer to export.
This is a pilot project, which, if successful, will be available to any locally owned exporter in PNG working with Sucafina.
Greenhouse Gases (GHG), such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, can be emitted at various points in the coffee production cycle, including during soil preparation and the production and application of fertiliser, transport, and power generation for coffee processing.
Climate change is now a major consideration for leading roasters and coffee retailers around the world, who are keen to purchase sustainably farmed coffee with less of a carbon footptint built into its supply.
The detailed mapping of Sucafina’s supply chain will help determine which steps lead to the most carbon emissions.
The Sucafina team in Goroka has already started mapping out measuring points, starting from farmers' gardens through to export.
Once the team has the emission results for each step of the supply chain, they will be able to select optimum improvement measures to effectively reduce these emissions and the carbon footprint.
Takeaways from the pilot project will inform Sucafina on how it can work towards reducing carbon emission to be able to secure good market prices with international coffee buyers.
This benefits exporters, but also the certified farmers who form the supply base. It will also help MDF to design similar initiatives in the future.