As the lines slowly drift away and the machines drip their last drop, Tim Hortons' freshman year on campus can be considered nothing short of a success, with hordes of UB students enjoying every sip of the Canadian-born cup of joe.
Buried deep within its rolled up, wax-lined walls, however, are hundreds of birds leaving their habitat and biodiversity being laid waste to by bulldozers.
In the heart of the Brazilian forests are thousands of coffee trees hidden beneath their massive counterparts, brimming with birds of all sizes and shapes. Only a few miles away, there are hundreds of construction workers actively destroying these forests to one day harvest a large coffee plantation, according to Marc Neubauer, president of Under the Shade productions.
Shade-grown coffee is often bred in South American rainforests underneath large trees to allow the coffee berries more time to ripen, while allowing for additional pollinators to make sweeter tasting coffee.
But South American rainforests where shade-grown coffee is harvested are being destroyed to create a home for the cheaper and quicker version, Neubauer said. Sun-grown coffee strains, developed in 1972, are less expensive than shade-harvested beans, but must be grown in the sun. The coffee plantations being created for sun-grown coffee are creating mass deforestation throughout South America, and leaving shade-grown coffee farmers with little demand for their product.
In response to the harmful effects of sun-grown coffee for Latin American rainforests and farmers, many of whom are now living in poverty, Neubauer said he hopes to create a massive 22-university campaign in which he plans to raise awareness about the effects of South America's large coffee plantations.
"Before 1970, all coffee was grown underneath the shade," Neubauer said, explaining that the new sun-grown strain gives better yield. "But [sun-grown coffee] has to be grown underneath the sun, so that led to mass deforestation in all of Latin America. So, countries like Costa Rica and Columbia lost two-thirds of their forest," Neubauer said.
No country has been hurt more by the new coffee strain than the world's leading coffee exporter, Brazil. Between 1990 and 2005, Brazil lost around 8.1 percent of its forest cover, which equates to around 42,329,000 hectares, according to www.mongabay.com. Brazil's share of coffee currently accounts for about a third of the world's total coffee exports.
Limiting biodiversity in the areas surrounding the plantations, the coffee companies are also responsible for mass deforestation, which has caused around 25 to 30 percent of the greenhouse gases being released into the Earth's atmosphere at the present time.
In order to raise awareness, Neubauer expects to create a sizeable student-friendly event, like a concert, to promote activism on college campuses. His objective is to convince Tim Hortons to sell shade-grown coffee, starting with college campuses like UB.
His ultimate goal would be to prevent Tim Hortons on college campuses from selling their blend mixes of coffee, and switch over to sell only shade-grown coffee products.
"It's a campaign...with the goal being to sell shade-grown coffee," Neubauer said. "Our campaign is half concert, half awareness event. [It] is what we want to do with schools like UB and Syracuse - the schools that are surrounded by Tim Hortons."
When coffee companies generate their products for the public, the corporations do their best to keep their costs down without putting any care into the areas where they are committing environmental travesties, according to Neubauer.
"You would find the [shade-grown] coffee in basically a lot of coffee. But what really happens is these farmers, they either grow shade or sun, and then your major roasters ... what they basically do is make a blend. They take shade; they take sun, and just mix it in. They don't care, they want the cheapest," he said.
On-campus coffee favorites Tim Hortons and Starbucks offer different types of coffee, but neither is really shade grown, Neubauer explained. Representatives from both Starbucks and Tim Hortons declined to comment on multiple occasions.
On its official Web site, Tim Hortons states that they have created what they call a "sustainable coffee program."
"The Tim Hortons approach to coffee sustainability is to be directly involved with coffee producing communities by providing direct financial assistance for technical training to improve the quantity and quality of coffee produced and assist farmers in getting their coffee to market at the best time and for the best price," the site reads. "Assistance is also provided on environmental management, in both proper farming techniques and reforestation projects, led by Tim Hortons."
Across the street in The Commons lies Starbucks, a company that does sell shade-grown coffee, but the percentage of shade the coffee is grown under is never defined.
"We've been partnering with Conservation International (CI) for more than 10 years, working together with farmers to grow coffee in a way that's good for both them and the earth. CI also helped us design our first environmentally, socially and economically responsible coffee-buying guidelines," reads a statement found on Starbucks' official Web site.
coffee. So there's a huge discrepancy there."
The statement continues: "Over the last 10 years, those guidelines have turned into what we now know as our 120 critical standards for coffee quality, environmental practices, social and economic expectations, and price transparency to farmers. To be part of Starbucksâa¢ Shared Planetâa¢, farmers must meet all of these strict criteria. And speaking of transparency, we ask a third-party verifier to do the auditing."
The specific guidelines, however, could not be found on the Starbucks Web site.
While being slightly vague about what their standards are, Neubauer believes other institutions are to blame for the coffee companies being allowed to fabricate or exaggerate how much shade their coffee is grown under.
"The thing of it is, about five months ago I talked to Starbucks [and] Seattle's Best, and basically the institution that figures out what is shade [the Smithsonian Institute] classifies shade-grown coffee in a bunch of ways and levels," Neubauer said. "In other words, you can be a farmer and have 10 acres of land and 10 trees and try and get away with saying you [have] shade-grown coffee. Or, basically you could be a farmer who has a natural rainforest...be considered shade grown coffee. So there's a huge discrepancy there."
A diagram of what is considered to be shade-grown coffee can be found on the company's Web site. Any of the scenarios, from rustic to shade monoculture, would be able to go into the shade grown tagline, although the shade monoculture situation features far fewer trees for the coffee to blossom under.
Neubauer said that instead of being more aware of the damage done to the environment by sun-grown coffee related deforestation, the coffee companies' use of the "shade grown" label is merely a publicity stunt to appear environmentally friendly. Not upholding the standards they promote is hurting Latin America even more, he said.
"If you call up Starbucks [or] Seattle's best and ask them what level of shade ... [they can] guarantee [your coffee is grown] under, they'll say they can't tell you. If you ask a smaller company, they'll basically say, 'Who you calling from? Are you a government agency? What are you doing?'" Neubauer said. "With these companies right now, there's really no pressure on them to guarantee what they're doing. It's a marketing gimmick. It's like, 'Hey look, save the birds, prevent deforestation and buy their coffee.'"
Neubauer believes that something as simple as asking customers to spend around $0.50 more for a cup of coffee will not only help Latin America, but will aid in the cooling of the Earth.
"What can you do about deforestation? It's as simple as changing the way you drink coffee," Neubauer said. "What are the alternatives to global warming? You can spend $10,000 on a new [environmentally friendly] car, or spend $.50 cents more a cup of coffee."
