Sustainable coffee is good for everybody

Every day, salarymen and women pack a cafe located at JR Tokyo Station in the capital's Marunouchi district to sip a cup of coffee.

An employee at Tokyo Ekitchen delivers Rainforest Alliance certified coffee. (LOUIS TEMPLADO/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

At Tokyo Ekitchen, operated by the Nippon Restaurant Enterprise Co. (NRE), employees serve small-sized coffee in a paper cup marked with a green frog.

One afternoon in April, this reporter asked several coffee drinkers, "Do you know what the frog represents?" No one had a clue, and no one had heard of "sustainable coffee."

"I often visit this cafe and order coffee, but I hadn't even noticed the logo until today," says a male worker, 57. A woman, 44, says: "I always thought the coffee at this cafe tasted good. And I've noticed the logo on the cup and related posters on the walls but I didn't know what it was all about."

While sustainable coffee is gradually spreading, many Japanese consumers are still in the dark.

So what is it? Simply put, sustainable coffee is about coffee grown in a manner that is both good for the environment and its growers. Consumers, in turn, get tasty and safe coffee.

Several international nonprofit organizations based in Europe or the United States have standards they apply to certify sustainable coffee. Those coffee beans are sold under each organization's labels and the farmers who grow the coffee beans receive a decent profit.

Let's take the Rainforest Alliance (RA), a New York-based nonprofit, for example. To be certified, a coffee plantation has to meet RA standards, including fair treatment and good working conditions for employees and good conservation practices for the soil, forests and wildlife. Its trademark is the green frog.

Tokyo Ekitchen began serving RA-certified coffee in 2004. Now, about 90 percent of NRE's cafes at stations in the service areas of East Japan Railway Co. serve coffee brewed from RA-certified beans, an NRE spokesperson says.

You can find sustainable coffee at Haneda Airport. All Nippon Airways Co. started serving RA-certified coffee in its lounges in 2004.

It is also available on the Tokaido Shinkansen Line. JR-Central Passengers Co. started offering coffee blended with 30 percent RA-certified coffee on bullet trains in March 2007.

The number of places where you can buy sustainable coffee beans is also increasing. You can get certified beans at major coffee chains' outlets, supermarkets and convenience stores.

Starbucks Coffee Japan Ltd. started to sell Virginia-based Conservation International-certified beans in 2000, while Tully's Coffee Japan Co. began to sell Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International coffee beans in 2005.

According to Sabrina Vigilante, a senior manager at the Rainforest Alliance, RA-certified coffee was first shipped to Japan in 1999. Sales in Japan increased from 120 metric tons in 2003 to 5,720 metric tons in 2007. Roasters, such as UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., Ajinomoto General Foods, Inc. and large trading houses are major importers of RA coffee.

Some small coffee shops have also started offering sustainable coffee. Cafe Bird, located in a quiet residential area in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, can accommodate only seven people. Patrons listen to jazz as they sip their java.

Since opening the cafe in 2006, Kazuhiko Kasama has used RA-certified coffee beans.

As he brews a cup of coffee with a siphon-style coffee maker, the 62-year-old owner says: "I'm really proud of my coffee. To tell you the truth, I didn't know much about RA coffee before I opened the cafe. If it hadn't tasted good, I wouldn't have used it. I think it was a good choice."

Kasama, a buyer for a department store for 38 years, opened the cafe after he retired. "I wanted to do something useful for others. I wanted to offer a place for neighbors to relax. I think the concept of RA coffee fits the theme of my cafe," he says.

In the United States and Europe, sustainable coffee has a longer history and is quite common. MacDonald's in Britain began serving RA-certified beans at all its outlets in January 2007.

Japan still lags behind, some industry experts say.

"The history of sustainable coffee in Japan has only just started," says Yoshiaki Kawashima, a former executive at major coffee company UCC.

The 51-year-old coffee expert organized the first sustainable coffee symposium in Tokyo in July 2007. Seven major certifying organizations got together from all over the world for the discussion.

Although the audience was made up of people from the coffee industry and consumers who were supposed to be coffee savvy, the first question from the floor during the question and answer session was: "Where can we get sustainable coffee?"

Kawashima quit UCC and established the Sustainable Coffee Association of Japan in November 2007 to promote sustainable coffee.

"Although more and more places are selling sustainable coffee beans, the number of places where you can actually drink it remains small," he says. Producing a map or a list of places where people can drink sustainable coffee in the Kanto region will be the new association's first task, he says.

"What if coffee disappeared tomorrow? Heavy coffee drinkers would probably panic. This might sound ridiculous, but it could happen if we continue to pursue economic efficiency without taking care of the global environment and the coffee producers."

Coffee is one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world. Coffee beans are mostly grown in developing countries and consumed in developed countries.

Japan is the world's third largest coffee importer. Japanese consume more than 300 cups of coffee per person a year.

According to the All Japan Coffee Association, Japan last year imported 425,778 tons of coffee, including both beans and other products.

Kawashima refers to the so-called coffee crisis in 2001-2002. During the crisis, coffee prices on the global market plunged to record low levels. In the 1980s, coffee prices were around $1.20 per pound (454 grams) on average. Prices dropped to 41.5 cents per pound in December 2001, according to the International Coffee Organization (ICO). Many coffee producers in developing countries had to abandon their farms or switch to alternative crops.

Kawashima says: "If nobody grows coffee, inevitably, nobody will be able to drink coffee. I think some mechanisms are necessary to reduce coffee-price fluctuations as much as possible so that producers can continue to cultivate coffee."

The sustainable coffee movement is one answer, he says. "I think coffee-related companies should consider committing themselves to sustainable coffee as a part of corporate social responsibility."

To promulgate information on sustainable coffee, Kawashima is preparing another symposium for consumers in October. He also intends to organize tours to Guatemala early next year, to provide participants the opportunity to observe coffee supply chains first hand and to compare conventional coffee farms with sustainable ones.

Kawashima says: "Even if sustainable coffee is a great idea, it is meaningless if consumers don't choose it. I hope our activities will influence behavior and serve as a bridge between coffee farmers and coffee drinkers. If people choose sustainable coffee as a 'cool choice,' that would be wonderful."

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The documentary "Oishii Coffee no Shinjitsu" (The truth of good coffee; original English title "Black Gold") by Marc Francis and Nick Francis opens May 31 in Tokyo. The film highlights the coffee industry and international trade, through Ethiopian coffee farmers and their cooperative's struggle for fair trade. For more information, visit <www.uplink.co.jp/oishiicoffee>.(IHT/Asahi: May 2,2008)