Consumers are becoming increasingly interested in information
regarding the impacts resulting from their purchases, especially in
terms of climate change. As a result, product carbon footprints
(PCFs) have emerged as a method for assessing greenhouse gas
emissions from goods and services over their life cycle, with moves
to create global standard methodologies (BSI, 2011) in an attempt to
improve the quality and comparability of reported PCFs. Despite the
focus on the socio-environmental impacts of production, there
have only been limited efforts to quantify and compare the energy
and greenhouse gas emissions across the life cycle of coffee e
notably Humbert et al. (2009) and Tchibo (2009). This paper examines the PCFs and energy use in a ‘cradle-to-grave’ analysis
which ranges from cultivation to disposal of a selection of different
coffee products available in the vicinity of Kyoto University’s main
campus in Kyoto, Japan.
environmental burden due to fertiliser use, habitat destruction and
effluent releases (Chanakya and De Alwis, 2004; Coltro et al., 2006)
have been well-documented.