November 5, 2025 • 51 mins
Happy Planet Wednesday!
You might want to listen to this podcast before you pour yourself that cherished morning cup of coffee....
Our guest today is Etelle Higonnet, a French-born, Yale Law School graduate, living in Denmark, who set out to make coffee more environmentally friendly through her organization COFFEE WATCH.
What she discovered was that environmental degradation was just the tip of the iceberg. The coffee industry is fraught with human injustices as well including human trafficking, child labor, and slavery.
Despite these horrors, Etelle is confident that she can make a difference by getting all of us to vote with our pocketbooks and put pressure on our local governments.
Can we have our coffee and our happy planet too? Tune in to hear it from Etelle.
Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Abigail (00:05):
Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation
for a happy planet.
I am your host, Abigail Carroll.
You might wanna listen to thispodcast before you pour yourself
that cherished morning cup ofcoffee.
Our guest today is Atel hie, aFrench born Yale Law School
graduate, living in Denmark, whoset out to make the coffee
(00:28):
industry more environmentallyfriendly through her
organization Coffee Watch.
What she discovered, however,was that environmental
degradation was just the tip ofthe iceberg.
The coffee industry is fraughtwith human injustices as well,
including human trafficking,child labor, and slavery.
(00:50):
Despite these horrors, ITEL isconfident that she can make a
difference by getting all of usto vote with our pocketbooks and
put pressure on our localgovernments.
Can we have our coffee and ourhappy planet too.
Let's hear it from a tell.
Welcome to the program Mattel.
Etelle (01:13):
It's so great to be here.
Thank you.
Having me on.
Abigail (01:17):
Well, I am, I'm delighted to have you on,
although I must say you've mademe have to really question my
role in the world when everymorning I get up and I look
forward to my first cup ofcoffee of the day.
Etelle (01:33):
So many people, me, I've ruined their
Abigail (01:36):
you may have ruined my life, but, you know I I still
appreciate it.
So you have started anorganization called Coffee Watch
tell me about your organizationand what problem you're trying
to solve here.
Etelle (01:50):
Yeah, so Coffee Watch.
I guess the easiest way todescribe it, it's as if
Greenpeace and AmnestyInternational got together and
had a baby, and that baby justwanted to work on coffee.
I say this in part because Iused to work at Green Fees and
Amnesty, so I'm very influencedby that.
(02:10):
But you know, really my dream isjust to end environmental and
social abuses and coffee andtransform the industry so that
it makes the world a betterplace with every cup.
You know, without all thisdeforestation and pesticides
soaked monoculture and slaveryand human trafficking and rape,
and child labor and poverty, wedon't need to have those in our
(02:32):
coffee.
We can absolutely have ethical,sustainable coffee.
And that's kind of my NorthStar.
Abigail (02:39):
Wow.
Okay.
You just used a lot of big wordsthere.
Slavery, deforestation,exploitation.
Like how bad is this situation?
Etelle (02:50):
Abigail, it's so bad.
I didn't even realize how bad itwas until I got geared up to
launch Coffee Watch.
I knew.
Coffee was the number six driverof deforestation in the world.
Like that is actually why Iwanted to start coffee watches.
'cause I thought, oh, you know,scientists are telling us we
don't have much time.
We have to save all theseforests before it's too late.
(03:12):
Coffee is one of the topdrivers.
You know, there's seven big, bigdrivers of deforestation in the
world.
We've gotta really change thoseand turn them around and
coffee's one of them and it getsvery short shrift.
I mean really, basically almostnobody works to.
Combat, deforestation, coffee toname and shame be kind of a
watchdog.
Abigail (03:32):
Sorry to interrupt, but why?
Why is it deforest?
Like what are, what's themechanics?
Why is coffee contributing todeforestation?
Etelle (03:40):
Oh yeah, great question.
Essentially, Abigail, let's sayyou are a company or a farmer
you know.
You're living in wherever.
Could be Colombia, Indonesia,Brazil, Mexico.
It could be Vietnam.
You buy a plot of forested land,usually that's the sort of
cheapest land.
Abigail (04:00):
Yeah.
Etelle (04:01):
You chop it down and you plant coffee there.
Abigail (04:04):
Okay.
Etelle (04:05):
That's full sun monoculture robust.
Or you buy a plot of forestedland, you keep some trees, you
chop a lot of them down, and youplant like agroforestry, Arabica
kind of coffee.
And then over time, as thecoffee gets stronger, you chop
more and more trees and it getsto be less and less shady.
And those, those ways of growingcoffee are very common.
(04:27):
That's like the old schools,your business as usual,
unethical unsustainable, modusoperandi that's characterized.
Most, most of coffee comes at atthe expense of forests.
It, it grows on what used to beforested land, but it doesn't
have to be that way.
Right?
We can grow coffee on degradedlands.
(04:48):
We can find degraded lands, infact and like regenerate them by
putting agroforestry coffee.
You plant coffee and they putlots of trees in, and among the
coffee and the coffee kind ofthe allows you financially to
make an agro forest.
That is healing the soil.
That's like, there's thiscompany called Slow Forest
Coffee, that that's their wholebusiness model.
(05:09):
They buy trashed soil that'sdestroyed and then they plant
agroforestry coffee there toheal the ecosystem.
Abigail (05:16):
Interesting.
So there are these questions,the United States and Canada,
other places where we have solarfarms, I've actually read
articles that saying likeagriculture grown under the
solar panels that are on thefields does very well'cause it
actually traps in some of thehumidity.
But maybe coffee doesn't needthat humidity.
(05:37):
I don't know.
Etelle (05:38):
No coffee does need humidity, so you're right.
I mean, the beautiful thingabout these solar farms is
actually you can marry them withagriculture.
So I, I love wine.
I'm French, you know, part of myancestors had a vineyard back in
the day.
I have a, a wine enthusiast, Iguess you could say, and I
Abigail (05:54):
you're French too, so
Etelle (05:56):
And I was very lucky to be able to be one of the
founding members of thesustainable Wine round tables
that I kind of stay plugged intonews about sustainable wine.
It turns out solar and wine loveeach other.
I guess you could say Dion, ISISand Apollo are like best buds.
Because you're right that, youknow when you have, especially
in, in the southernMediterranean region where it's
(06:18):
very hot and you have these heatdomes and you can have like
droughts when you mix.
Solar panels and vines, it canbe incredibly beneficial for the
vines and really good for thequality of the Y.
Abigail (06:31):
Interesting.
So there is a way to do this onan environmental way that is
Etelle (06:35):
Oh, totally.
Oh yeah,
Abigail (06:38):
and it's just not the cheapest way.
Etelle (06:40):
It's not necessarily the cheapest way, but you know,
you're a hundred percent right.
We can absolutely do this.
An environmental way, like thereare two paths.
We've chosen a garbage path andthere's an environmentally sound
path, and we can just shift fromone to the other.
And essentially, coffee for themost part, loves trees because
if one thing that you said, it'smoisture, coffee likes air
(07:02):
moisture, and it likes rainfall.
Coffee is a very finickysensitive plant that does not
like heat domes and superstormsand droughts and climate chaos.
It is very finicky.
It doesn't like that at all.
And trees actually not only keepair moisture, they keep soil
moisture, they keep soil health.
They act as like giant strawsand sponges that suck up water
(07:22):
when there's been a superstorm,but they also maintain moisture
and coolness when you have likea super hot drought.
So trees are awesome for mostcoffee.
We have kind of weirdly decidedto develop this full and robust
strain, which is kind of astupid, weird, bad human idea
that we.
Maybe you shouldn't revisit.
Abigail (07:43):
Is that because of harvesting?
Because the trees would get inthe way, in the way of like
machinery.
I mean, I know that's a problemwith crops.
Like why you,
Etelle (07:51):
If you wanna do highly mechanized, yes, a hundred
percent.
If you wanna do highly
Abigail (07:55):
need are new machines.
Etelle (07:57):
Yeah.
Abigail (07:58):
Yeah.
Etelle (07:59):
Yeah.
Solar.
Yeah.
These huge plantations that arefull sun robusta.
They lend themselves much betterto highly mechanized
agriculture.
Abigail (08:09):
Yeah.
So, so the deforestation, theenvironmental part of this is
one thing that, that coffeewatch is taking on, but you also
talk about just basically humanexploitation and, we've talked
about slavery.
Tell me about the humancomponent here and, we have
(08:31):
these international rules aboutslavery and things like that.
How can this be happening todayin 2025?
Etelle (08:38):
It's crazy.
It just batshit crazy.
I, this is sounds like a realdowner and it will get better
afterwards, I promise, becauseI'll talk about solutions and we
can make it better.
Let me just be very blunt.
Pretty much every time you drinka cup of coffee, you're drinking
(08:59):
poverty, probably extremepoverty, and many times that you
drink a cup of coffee, you aredrinking child labor or slavery,
or dead bondage or humantrafficking, or some weird toxic
combination of that.
Abigail (09:19):
Hmm.
Etelle (09:20):
And I say this because.
There are millions of kidsworking at coffee, like
millions.
Literally there the, there's noone fantastically
methodologically sound, reallygood meta study of child labor
and coffee.
Like we have something like thatin cocoa actually, that was done
by these incredible scholars atNewark and before that, Tulane,
it was paid for by theDepartment of Labor before it
(09:42):
got dozed by Mr.
Musk.
Thank you.
And so we don't have somethingquite like that for coffee.
What we have is the best studiesthat.
The most methodologicallyimpressive scholars, either NGO
or university folks have done indifferent places.
So here's just like threeexamples, but I could go on all
night.
But you know, in the interest oftime, it's really, really
(10:04):
important.
Study was done on Ethiopia bythese scholars from Scandinavian
universities, some of whom areof Ethiopian origin.
It focused on Ethiopian coffeefarmers and child labor.
They found that around 91% ofcoffee farmer families were
using child labor.
Then there's another study thatwas done also actually funded by
(10:27):
US Department of Labor before itgot do thank you, Mr.
Musk Trump.
And that study in Columbia foundthat around 74% of coffee
farming families in that countryuse child labor.
They're studying Honduras 64%basically.
Every country you look at wherethere's been any studies, they
all tell us that we are talkingabout the majority of coffee
(10:53):
farming families using childlabor.
They don't do that becausethey're sadistic whackadoodles.
Abigail (10:59):
Mm.
Etelle (10:59):
They do that because they're extremely poor and they
often have no choice.
Starve and go to school or comeoutta school and work in coffee,
and then we can all eat maybe.
So they're so food insecure.
That is why they're sendingtheir kids to do what is
backbreaking difficult work thatthey do not want their kids to
(11:19):
do.
You know, when you talk to them,parents will tell you, if this
breaks my heart, I hate it.
I do not wanna do this.
I have
Abigail (11:26):
They want better for their children and you know, as,
as all parents.
Etelle (11:29):
of course.
But so basically when you do themath, you start to realize.
Hundreds of thousands here.
Millions there.
Millions.
Year and a half here.
Tens of thousands.
Ba We are talking about millionsof kids in coffee.
That is why I say if you drinkcoffee and you are not paying
attention, you're definitelydrinking child labor.
Abigail (11:54):
I saw some, brands that didn't really surprise me.
The Starbucks, the Nestle's withthe, you know, is it just them?
Or is this really broad spreadto kind of all, or let's say 90%
of the coffee that, that's inthe supermarket today.
Etelle (12:12):
I would say, you know, there are a lot of big brands
that we have caught.
Over and over at Coffee Watchand investigations that we've
done with Sister NGOs.
You, we've only been operationalfor less than a year, but we
manage with the help of theseamazing sister NGOs to pull off
investigations in China, in Yan,which is where almost other
(12:34):
coffee's grown in Mexico, inColombia, in Brazil.
We have some more teams on theground right now.
We've found so many big brands.
With a range of problems,slavery, human trafficking or
labor, dead bondage, childlabor, people working insane
(12:56):
hours.
And by insane hours, I mean like18 hours a day.
And I mean, people who areworking, like almost all the
coffee farmers that weinterview, and especially the
harvesters, the farm workers,they talk about working seven
days a week.
For three months straight.
Dental desk, if not more.
(13:19):
That's just the norm.
That's not like apples or ithappens occasionally.
Like just imagine if somebodymade you work 12 hours a day or
18 hours a day, seven days aweek for three months with no
sick leave.
No, no, no PPE, no personalprotective gear, no medical
care, no.
(13:39):
No social security, no pension.
Most of these people are ghostemployees.
They don't even like, haveproper papers.
They're not really registered,so they don't get pensions, they
don't get social security.
We, in fact, titled a wholereport coffee laundering, ghost
farms, and coffee laundering,because that's just the norm.
So essentially we found.
(14:00):
Oh, so many abuses, but just toname a few.
Like we, we did a petition to UScustoms, which hasn't yet been
dod hopefully it doesn't get so.
To CBP you can do somethingcalled a 3 0 7 petition, where
you ask customs to block coffeetainted by slavery and for
slavery from entering the us Wedid that and we named in our 3 0
7 complaint.
Starbucks Nestle, McDonald's,JDE ili.
Abigail (14:25):
How's Dunking Donuts doing?
That's a New England favorite.
Etelle (14:28):
mean, so Duncan is, is named in our 3 0 7 petition.
We literally believe that theyhave slavery and forced labor in
their coffee supply chain.
We think that they're buying, Imean, of course this has to get
adjudicated by customs.
They're reviewing our data.
They may find it in our favor.
They may find against.
We certainly produced a hugeamount of information.
(14:50):
I think it's one of the bestcases I've ever seen.
Go to CBP.
A lot of experts helped us makeit really top tier.
But yeah, we, we suspect, wethink we allege that they are
buying coffee from companiesthat have not just a little bit
of slavery, but a widespread andsystematic and recurring problem
of slavery over and over andover in their supply chain.
Abigail (15:12):
Oh,
Etelle (15:13):
So it's, it's one of the top drivers of slavery in
Brazil.
And Brazil is the number
Abigail (15:18):
I read one of your articles.
Yeah.
Brutal.
Etelle (15:21):
But you asked
Abigail (15:23):
Sorry.
Etelle (15:23):
question about like, does everyone have this problem?
And I will just say that a lotof companies think they're so
amazing and actually they tendto, a lot of them have many
problems.
We found so many
Abigail (15:39):
like all of the brands that are like environmentally or
sustainable or,
Etelle (15:43):
yeah, there, there was, we found slavery in certified
coffee farms.
There's this coffee farm, it'scalled like the cup of
Excellence.
It's like the Emmy Award winnerof coffee You were found
(16:26):
connected to maybe forcedslavery.
Yeah.
Abigail (16:32):
So I wanna back up a little bit and before we get to
hopefully a, a brighter topic ofwhat you're doing and what we
can do differently why coffee?
Etelle (16:43):
Oh, I need coffee.
Just because it's one of the topseven drivers of deforestation
in the world.
And a lot of people work on theother drivers, you know?
So when I was at Greenpeace Ihad a front row seat to doing
this amazing work on palm oiland palm and paper.
It really inspired me.
It taught me so much.
It got me all revved up.
When I left Greenpeace andhelped to get Mighty Earth going
(17:06):
which is, you know, mostly XGreenpeace at, at the beginning
X Greenpeace folks, we keptworking on cattle, soy, and palm
oil, which are like the top.
Drivers, you know, ofdeforestation.
But we also managed to do thefirst ever global campaigns on
cocoa and on rubberdeforestation.
And we really helped turn aroundthose industries.
(17:28):
When I was at Miami Earth, itwas like a bombshell went off in
cocoa and in rubber.
And it's not that, you know,these industries are perfect by
any means, but the palm oilindustry is night and day better
to what it used to be 17 yearsago, night and day.
So many companies now are like,no deforestation, no Pete, no
exploitation, no.
(17:48):
They've cracked down on rape,forced labor, slavery, they've
cracked down on burning fires.
You know, people just likeburned the forest'cause it's
cheaper to do that than Oz.
Which is terrible.
Obviously.
It's, it's ghastly.
So anyways, Paulo got so muchbetter.
It taught me what we can do towin and then, yeah.
(18:09):
In part because Mighty Earthreally made deforestation and
cocoa and rubber a big thing.
I would say that now the otherseven high risk commodities,
there are folks really doinggreat work on all the other
seven except coffee.
So that's why I wanted to takeon coffee.
Abigail (18:25):
yeah, it wasn't because you have a particular, do you
drink coffee?
Etelle (18:29):
I do, I do.
I love coffee in Brazilian.
It comes from this coffeeproducing region, and I've seen
with my own eyes, you know, theyused to work for Greenpeace in
Southeast Asia.
I saw.
Terrible stuff in coffee andVietnam and Indonesia, and you
just like, it's so extreme.
Poverty is so common in coffee,and I just thought, wow, this is
(18:49):
so disgusting and wrong andhorrible.
But really it was because we'rein this planetary crisis where
we've gotta get ahead of climatechaos and mass extinction and
agriculture is like 30% ofclimate change and 80% of mass
extinction.
80% of biodiversity losses fromour agriculture system.
So I thought, okay, let's try todo that for coffee.
(19:10):
And then once I got revved up tostart coffee watch, then I
realized there's like slaves andkids and trafficking.
Like what?
Abigail (19:19):
Oh.
It's, it doesn't really surpriseme.
The, the abuse of the planetwould go hand in hand with the
abuse of its inhabitants, likeit's human inhabitants.
I feel like it's a, thementality is kind of similar.
Etelle (19:33):
You are so Right.
That's a very deep pointactually.
And you know, it's true what yousay.
And it actually applies also toocean stuff like the.
that are raping the ocean.
You know, IU fishing, partfishing.
Yeah.
Destroying marine protectedareas, things like that.
Catching juveniles outta season.
(19:54):
They tend to also
Abigail (19:56):
Yeah.
Etelle (19:57):
forced labor and seafood slavery.
So you're right, it's like thetwo sides of the same coin.
The way you treat mother earthand the way you treat humans.
If you're awful to what, you'reprobably doing terrible things
to both.
It's true, isn't it?
Abigail (20:12):
So what do we do?
Etelle (20:14):
Oh my God, there's so much we can do.
That's the good news.
Abigail (20:17):
So what are you doing?
First of all?
What's Coffee Watch doing?
And then I wanna know how all ofus listening can be part of your
movement and what we can do tohelp.
Etelle (20:27):
Abigail, you know, no one should feel despairing and
down a heartened and like doomscrolling into a place of
cynicism and apathy becauseactually.
I truly believe we can makecoffee better, and I think we
can do it faster than palm oil.
I think in five years we couldbe having a totally different
(20:47):
conversation.
I'll call you up and I'll belike, oh my God, it's worked.
I really, really, really believeit.
I'm in it to win it.
I think we can do this.
So, I mean, basically that wehave this immense, gorgeous
power corporations, and oftengovernments don't want you to
know that, but you are sopowerful.
And if people really knew that,then they would tap into their
(21:09):
power and then things wouldchange a lot.
And so maybe that's whycorporations and governments
don't want us to know.
But for coffee, you can votewith your wallet and buy ethical
coffee.
It sort of depends where youlive.
If you're in Maine, if you're inCalifornia, if you're in South
Africa or Australia or Mexico orIndonesia, there's different,
(21:30):
like good brands that areavailable.
You know, London Kiss the Hippo.
If you're in Denmark, I wouldsay go for slow food coffee.
If you're in Indonesia, I'd sayby coffee.
There's, you know, a bunch ofgood brands all over the world
and
Abigail (21:45):
we'll put those at the, in the show notes so people can
get them unless you
Etelle (21:48):
yeah.
Abigail (21:49):
maybe afterwards you wanna name some,
Etelle (21:51):
We actually created this one stop shop page on our
website where people can go tofind all the solutions.
So there's this little guidethat we made towards buying
responsibly sourced coffeethat's like, well, ethical and
sustainable, and we put all theguides that everyone has ever
created to buying sustainablecoffee and like what you could
look for and things to keep inmind and what to be aware of.
(22:14):
But you don't just have to buygood coffee for yourself.
Like it, all it takes is onehour of research to find the
brand that matches your values.
You know, that's like directtrade and living income and
agroforestry shade grown, allthat good, good stuff.
You know,
Abigail (22:29):
Can we believe those labels though?
Because you just mentionedbefore that you know, brands
that are presenting themselvesas you know, sustainable aren't
always
Etelle (22:39):
I would, yeah, I would not just rely on certifications.
Abigail (22:42):
yeah.
Etelle (22:43):
Notifications alone are not a guarantee really, of
sustainability for the mostpart.
But if you look at our littleguide, it tells you all the
things to look for that, thegreenwashing to be aware of.
And then all the companies thatwe think are doing this for
real, real.
Abigail (22:58):
Yeah.
Etelle (22:59):
But basically one hour of your time, you find the right
coffee company for you.
Or maybe 3, 4, 5.
You order a bunch of them.
You decide which one is thetastiest that you love the most.
Then you can just keep orderingthat indefinitely.
Right.
And you know, the other thing Iwould say is not just buying
from the heart and voting withyour wallet for your own coffee.
(23:19):
You can like gift sustainablecoffee for brunches when you're
invited for birthdays, for bigholidays for.
And you can tell people like,oh, Abigail, it's your birthday.
I love you.
I love the planet, therefore,and you love coffee.
So I'm giving you like fabulousplanet, loving people, friendly
coffee that's not trashingfarmers and forests.
Happy birthday.
If you want more, let me know.
(23:41):
So basically you become like anambassador when you do that.
And I would say that's true evenat a bigger scale if you're able
to change your university oryour school or your office.
because often your consumptionis kind of peanuts compared to
the institutions that you're apart of, your church, your
mosque, your, you know, whereverit is that you worship.
(24:02):
So that's the whole like votewith your wallet side of things.
And depending on how big youdouble down on that, you can
become like a change maker.
But then also.
Don't forget, most of yourlisteners probably live in a
democracy and not in NorthKorea, I would say, unless you
maybe have lots in North
Abigail (24:22):
from North Korea yet, but I'll let you know if that
happens.
Etelle (24:26):
You secretly have lots of Russian, north Korean,
Hungarian listeners.
But no.
In principle, most people whoare listening to your show are
in a democracy.
Like if you message your electedrepresentative just once, that
probably has the value of buyingsustainable coffee for a year.
Abigail (24:47):
Wow.
Etelle (24:47):
And it can be on their social, it can be their email.
Those people work for you andthey care about what you have to
say.
They tabulate
Abigail (24:56):
the moment.
Etelle (24:57):
Well, it doesn't feel like that, of course, because,
you know, our democratic systemis a bit broken in a lot of
people.
Have checked out but are nowchecking back in.
I feel huge hope that people arerising up and feeling their
power and starting to play andlike, look, there's a lot of
folks in Congress and Senate whowon't do town hall meetings
(25:18):
anymore,
Abigail (25:19):
Oh, I know they're
Etelle (25:20):
but that's because they're scared, because like
they have their right to bescared, you know, because people
are so angry at them and Ithink, you know, the phone lines
are melting down in Congressand, but.
This is good, right?
We have a democracy maybe in theUS and other places where your
listers might be like Canada.
And to the extent that we haveit, using it is powerful because
(25:43):
our lawmakers can pass betterlaws.
There are even laws on the booksright now proposed that could
help make coffee moresustainable.
So just saying, I'm yourconstituent.
I care about coffee.
That's awesome and powerful.
So voting with your wallet isreally cool.
Using your power as a voter anda constituent to tell your
(26:06):
elected representative, like, Idrink coffee.
You drink coffee, the coffeeindustry sucks.
Whatcha doing about it?
And it can be that simple.
And then I would say it's notjust that we have this power
with our lawmakers to someextent, they might not listen to
us, but they do tabulate everysingle
Abigail (26:23):
Right, of course.
Yeah.
Etelle (26:25):
But companies are even more sensitive.
If you go into companies andcertification schemes like
social or you email them, theytotally freak out if you talk to
the manager or the barista, yourfavorite cafe or in your
favorite restaurant and tellthem like, oh, did you know this
(26:45):
about coffee?
I come here all the time.
You know, I'm a regular.
That registers like there's no
Abigail (26:52):
I'm sure.
Etelle (26:53):
That really registers companies are very sensitive to
consumer unrest.
They do not like having theirconsumers know that there's all
these bad things like slaveryand deforestation in their
supply chains.
That makes them veryuncomfortable.
And I would say besidesmessaging companies, messaging
our representatives and votingwith your wallet, there's all
this like power that comes fromsigning petitions.
(27:17):
So we curated on that same page,that like one stop shop, every
good thing you can do forcoffee, all the petitions that
other people have made forsustainable coffee.
And then we started two of them.
And so now you can just go andclick boop and that's also
pretty high value because thosethings really scare their
(27:42):
recipients.
Yeah, we have now a hundred.
Over a hundred thousandsignatures on one petition, over
70,000 on another petition.
That's the kind of numbers thatreally, it gets you like a
meeting with a C-suite.
It gets you CEO who feelsanxious and I'm, I battled on
(28:02):
this.
That's, that's not a, an easything to do, but it, it's
powerful.
I mean, it is easy to signpetitions, but it's not an easy
thing to grow your number.
It's that big.
But I think petitions arepowerful.
They're all there on that page.
And you know, the last thing isthat most people just don't know
how bad coffee is, and you canbecome like a truth ambassador.
(28:23):
I, I'm actually a kind of glasshuff full person.
Or maybe we should say Mug Hufffull person or Cup huff, full
person.
Because it's coffee.
I think most people are notsociopaths and are nice,
fundamentally good humans.
I really believe that.
And if they knew how shittytheir coffee was, they would not
be drinking it.
They would be like, what?
I don't want to drink childlabor in my coffee.
(28:43):
I'm spit it out.
You know?
And I think that just tellingpeople about what's going on is
really powerful.
And sometimes that can feelawkward or weird.
So we also curated this all thebest documentaries about the
problems in coffee and thesolutions in coffee.
So if it's just like watching afilm with your family.
(29:06):
your significant other, or yourfriends, you know that if you
screen one of these films,you're basically raising
awareness in a whole other humanor a whole gaggle of other
people.
So yeah, screening films is afantastic way to spread the
word, and none of these are madeby us, but the, the filmmaker
all just very kindly let us puttheir stuff up and some of it is
(29:30):
extremely disturbing.
And heartbreaking, but some ofit's really inspirational and
filled me with hope and beautyand
Abigail (29:37):
Mm.
Etelle (29:37):
energy, and I hope it does that.
For any of your listeners who golook at the
Abigail (29:42):
I think this is amazing.
It's amazing to hear that thesethings work from an insider.
I mean, that I wouldn't,honestly, I, I, maybe I am
cynical it.
I mean, I understand the votewith your wallet problem, but I
don't know that I would'vethought that signing petitions
really made a big difference.
I don't know that I would'vethought that.
(30:03):
You know shouting out on socialmedia would've made a difference
to these companies.
So I think it's reallyinteresting to hear that and
Etelle (30:11):
Can I tell you a funny story about
Abigail (30:13):
I would love it.
Etelle (30:14):
So back when I was in Mighty Earth and I was starting
these campaigns on cocoa to tryto change the chocolate
industry, you know, the cocoaindustry, I got these wonderful
folks at a petition group calledSome of Us, which is rebranded
now as echo.
They did a petition.
Hammering a chocolate companyfor their deforestation and the
(30:35):
fact that they were growingeverything in pesticides of
monoculture and didn't even careabout agroforestry at all, their
carbon, their biodiversity,terrible.
And for months, I'd been tryingto reach that company to start a
real serious negotiation to getthem to like agree to no
deforestation and agroforestrywith time-bound implementation
(30:56):
plan.
And I just couldn't get through.
I was like, I'm gonna have tosue them, like what am I gonna
do?
And then we did the petition,and then two days later, I got
all these desperate messages inmy inbox being like, oh, we'd
love to have a meeting.
We can't believe we missed yourearlier messages.
They went in our folder, theywere like, when can we meet
(31:17):
tomorrow?
And then at the meeting they'relike, okay, okay.
No deforestation.
We can do that, but Agroforestryis way too much.
And I was like.
Like really?
They're like, okay, okay.
(32:03):
Some is very funny.
It really like unblocked thiscompany.
So yeah,
Abigail (32:11):
That is a great
Etelle (32:12):
every time.
That was sort of like a bestcase scenario, but yeah, it
totally works.
People should feel so proud andenergized by the fact that we
have these amazing superpowersat our fingertips.
Abigail (32:27):
Hmm.
Etelle (32:27):
we just, you know, society doesn't tell us, but we
are so strong and powerful.
They have millions of dollars,but we have millions of people
who are nice, good people whocare.
And that is better, you know.
Abigail (32:41):
Wow.
You sent shivers up my spine.
So let's, let's say you get somechange.
You've gotta follow up.
They say, oh, we'll do a littlebit of the agroforestry, but,
but maybe,, they just do toolittle.
You know what, what, how.
How does Coffee watch make surethese changes are implemented
(33:01):
once they put the pressure onthese companies.
And what's your follow through?
Etelle (33:06):
These are excellent questions.
Essentially some things arecheap and easy and some things
are really hard to follow up on.
So deforestation.
Amazingly, Abigail, we now havereally good cheap satellite maps
that allow us to thank God.
Track deforestation in, in realtime, like very precise.
(33:29):
You know, it used to be so hardand now it's like one meter by
one meter.
You can see all the forestsgetting chopped down.
So you know, if a company isdeforesting and they have some
transparency in their supplychain, like they've disclosed
their supply chain, which iswhat we always ask down to
either the.
(33:49):
Farm Gate Polygon or the GPSpoint at the heart of the farm
or the co-op, you know, or atleast the region.
So you know, if Abigail and Iettare both buying from the same
village and we're the two bigbuyers, and then there's
deforestation in the village,basically you just write to
Abigail and Itan.
You're like, which one of youhas this deforestation?
Or is both of you, you know?
So basically the traceabilityand the satellite maps.
(34:11):
Allow you to just checkdeforestation pretty easy.
You don't have to dotraceability over and over and
over and over a million times,right?
You know, once it's disclosed,unless the supply chain changes,
it's there.
So that helps too.
Agroforestry, I think we're onthe verge of these huge
breakthroughs thanks to AI andever better satellite maps where
(34:31):
we will now be able to tell.
Over time if something is reggreening, so let's say Abigail
has a big bad monoculture, fullsun, RIBA plantation of coffee
like in Brazil or Vietnam,number one, number two, coffee
producing countries.
They're really addicted to thatform of coffee growing.
Abigail (34:52):
Hmm.
Etelle (34:53):
we signed an agreement and Abigail's like, fine, okay,
I'm gonna transition toAgroforestry.
Give me 10 years.
We would make like a time-boundimplementation plan and.
Maps would now reveal ifAbigail's farm is reg greening
or not.
So you plant these trees in andaround the coffee.
It could be zebras, could bepolka dots, could be donuts,
(35:16):
could be all over.
Ty, ty and over like.
You know, we do stop checksevery year and we can see the
progress or lack thereof.
That I think is, is alreadyhappening to some extent.
So checking Agroforestry hasbeen getting easier and I think
will get a lot easier.
What's harder is human rightsviolations, right?
(35:38):
But pretty easy is whetherAbigail or whatever company, you
know, Nestle, latza, AilyDuncan, McDonald's, whatever, if
they commit to paying a livingincome, then that's pretty easy
to check, right?
Because like.
If Abigail has a firm and I'mworking there, anyone can just
(35:59):
go ask it.
Dad, what do you earn?
And it's not like a huge thingof trust that I have to tell
you, oh, I've been raped orlike, I, you know, was
trafficked.
Just telling you how much Iearn.
That's, that's kind, doable.
You can even, Abigail can evenpay its debt with like mobile
money nowadays.
That's a huge breakthrough
Abigail (36:18):
Right.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of traceable, you
Etelle (36:20):
So I think because so much child labor comes from
extreme poverty, if companiescommitted to living income and
paid a living wage for the farmworkers and living income price
for the small holder farmers,then that would be pretty easy
to monitor.
And my guess is that then childlabor would plummet.
(36:42):
Now you'd still have to monitorit.
It's not easy, but people do it.
There's methodologically sound,ways to go do audits and check
about slavery, trafficking,child labor, sexual gender based
violence and exploitation, and,you know, inequality.
We have like a five hourconversation about this.
I love that stuff because it'smy passion.
(37:03):
But it is harder.
You need boots on the ground.
It's more expensive.
It's more time consuming.
It's often really great toinvolve local civil society
groups that are trusted, so thatis complicated too, because
let's say, you know, if you'resourcing from 19 countries, oh,
that's,
Abigail (37:19):
Right.
Etelle (37:21):
but but it's doable.
It's
Abigail (37:22):
Hmm,
Etelle (37:23):
doable.
Abigail (37:24):
interesting.
So well you brought up aninteresting question and about
paying livable wages.
If the coffee companies areeradicating poverty by paying
living wages, what should I bepaying for a cup of coffee?
Like, is there some data onthat?
What should a cup of coffee costme today in the United States?
Etelle (37:47):
Okay.
I think it's, it's, it's oftenkind of, there's this bugaboo or
is it bug bear?
I know one of the two that if wehave a living income for coffee
workers, everyone will gobankrupt up and down the supply
chain and you know, the coffeewill become unbearably
(38:08):
expensive.
The truth is if your listenersare in New York.
And they go to a regular deliand they get like a low end,
regular cup of coffee, not afancy latte.
It costs about$3 and 12 cents.
And coffee farmers will only gettwo, three, 4 cents of that.
So to pay a living income andalso.
(38:33):
Have human rights monitoring anda grievance mechanism that
people can access and nodeforestation, coffee, and also
agroforestry.
Like all those things, literallyyour cup of coffee would just be
2 cents more.
And here's kind of thebreakdown, even for a higher end
cup of coffee.
People just can't really believethis is true, but I swear to God
(38:54):
it's true.
Here's the breakdown of yourmorning cup of coffee
percentages.
In your cup of latte that youbuy at a cafe like a chain 0.4%
of the money that you pay foryour cup of coffee goes to the
coffee farmer.
4% of your cup goes to pay forcoffee, and 0.4% goes to the
(39:17):
coffee farmer.
Abigail (39:18):
hmm.
And the truth is we wannasupport these farmers.
Not only do we want them to havea sustainable wage, but we wanna
buy coffee so that they, theseeconomies
Etelle (39:28):
That is all bad.
Abigail (39:29):
on that, I'm just wondering what, what have Trump
tariffs done to the coffeeindustry and how has that
changing everything?
Etelle (39:37):
Oh, it's really bad.
It's so super bad for kinds ofcountries that grow coffee.
It's bad for coffee growingcountries that are extremely
dependent on the United States.
Because of geographical,geographical proximity, for
example.
So Mexico sends almost all theirexports of coffee to the us,
(39:59):
which makes sense.
They're across the border, theymake a lot, we drink a lot
Mexican coffee.
I think a little bit less thanhalf is for internal
consumption, and almost all ofthe exports are for the US and
Nicaragua also.
Is very dependent on the USmarket, but you know, not just
(40:20):
Mexico and Nicaragua.
Guatemala is super dependent.
Columbia is super dependent.
Okay?
Basically geographic proximitymeans that if you historically
just sold a lot to the UnitedStates and didn't bother to
cultivate relationships withEuropean buyers and Asian buyers
and whatever.
Now you're hostage to theAmerican market, right?
(40:41):
So that's one kind of countrythat's really royally screwed by
Trump tariffs.
And then the other kind ofcountry that's super screwed are
the countries with very hightariffs.
Abigail (40:51):
Yeah.
Etelle (40:52):
Brazil makes about a third of global coffee, and they
got slapped with 50% tariffsbecause Trump was angry.
That was nato.
Was being held accountable for acoup.
Maybe it's like cos of the worldunite or something.
I dunno.
But so poor Brazil got slappedwith a 50% tariff.
That's insanely high.
Abigail (41:14):
Hmm.
Etelle (41:14):
Indonesia, Vietnam, Vietnam's the second biggest
producer, Indonesia's the,actually, I should say Brazil
was screwed.
Vietnam is the number two coffeeproducing country.
They're not so dependent on theus but they have very high
tariffs, like 20%.
Columbia's the third biggestcoffee producing country.
They are high dependency andhigh tariff, and Indonesia also.
(41:38):
They're not so dependent on theUS market, but very high
tariffs.
So the top four coffee producingcountries got Ed Because they
just got very high tariffs.
And then some countries thatare, especially in Central
America very dependent on the USgot F-Ed.
Also because they had diettariffs, but mostly because
they're just hostage to ourmarket.
(41:59):
So yeah, Trump's tariffs arecataclysm for coffee farmers.
They're already very poor.
They're among some of theworld's poorest people.
Most coffee farmers earn lessthan$3 a day.
Many of them earn less than$2and 15 cents a day.
That's the extreme povertythreshold that the world makes,
that they could, ill afford tolose any money.
(42:22):
And the countries that aregrowing coffee are also not rich
and are in need of that revenue,and they're getting effed, it's
Abigail (42:31):
It worries me that.
I know that you've said just,it's just a few cents more to
have a, a workforce that's wellpaid and have agro forest
agroforestry.
But I worry that these tariffscould just be the excuse that
the companies use to not makethis change.
And, and so how do you, how doyou combat that?
Etelle (42:53):
So the tariffs are already having an impact.
The price of coffee is going up,and one of the things that I've
learned recently that was reallydisturbing is that often
companies will raise the priceabove and beyond what they had
to because of something liketariffs.
(43:14):
They'll just tack on a littleextra for profits.
That tends to be more true forbig companies than small.
But yeah, and then they don'tnecessarily bring the prices
down.
And you also have somethingcalled Tril where you'll just
get less coffee for the sameprice.
That's again, more like bigcompanies that are very
sophisticated in their packagingand have the ability to do
(43:35):
revamps like that where smallcompanies might not be able to.
But, i'm extremely preoccupiedthat entire coffee farming
regions like Japa and Mexicoand, and Brazil will experience
major blows in terms of likeeconomic collapse Because
(43:59):
everything runs on coffee.
That's like the lifeblood ofthose regions, you know, half a
person coffee.
Abigail (44:04):
It makes your work all the more important.
Etelle (44:08):
We did a whole paper on coffee tariffs, kind of begging
the Trump administration toexempt coffee because it's also
crazy'cause you can't grow it inAmerica.
You can grow like this tinyamount of coffee in Hawaii and
Puerto Rico.
You'd literally, you'd have tolike raise Olive Florida and.
Just mow down Hawaii, you stillwouldn't get enough land to grow
(44:32):
our coffee.
You know, it's it's crazy.
It, it makes no sense because atariff is usually for something
that you, America wouldotherwise be able to
Abigail (44:41):
Right.
Exactly
Etelle (44:43):
cannot grow that coffee in us.
Abigail (44:46):
That's like spot on.
I wonder if he drinks coffee.
He probably doesn't drinkcoffee.
Etelle (44:51):
does not drink coffee.
No.
Abigail (44:52):
Otherwise it would matter.
Etelle (44:55):
he doesn't, but he does love McDonald's.
So McDonald's is one of thebiggest purveyors of coffee in
the world.
Maybe they'll convince him tomake an exemption, his
secretaries of commerce, howHoward Lutnick did go on TV on
Squawk Box and announce thatcoffee would be exempt.
But we haven't seen that.
There is a petition right nowthat was started by
(45:18):
Representative Ana, who'samazing.
He's a California congressman.
Really, really cool.
He created a petition toactually ask Congress to repeal
tariffs on coffee because coffeefarmers are so poor.
This will push entire regionsinto collapse.
(45:41):
have to deal with like massmigration flows and craziness
and political upheaval andviolence, no doubt would ensue
from economic collapse.
So yeah, we, it's much better tolike not have coffee tariffs for
a lot of reasons.
Abigail (45:57):
so I think that should be on our list of things to do
you, you know, we talked about.
Contacting your electedrepresentatives, but maybe
that's a two part, like,
Etelle (46:07):
It's on our page, it's on that webpage I talked about
with all the petitions.
You just go click and you cansign.
It will go to your,automatically, you know, you,
you populate your address and itwill find your representative
for you.
Abigail (46:22):
All right.
We wanna vote with our wallet.
We wanna message ourrepresentatives.
We wanna lash out on socialmedia.
We wanna sign petitions,particularly yours, on the
website.
And we wanna be our ownambassadors bringing, sharing
the beautiful coffee brands withfriends and family so that they
(46:43):
learn that you can have yourcoffee and your agroforestry
too.
Etelle (46:49):
Abi, can you please be my spokesperson?
Abigail (46:57):
I wanna know if you have any advice for other
entrepreneurs, either ofnonprofits or of profit
businesses that are, that aretrying to, trying to make a dent
in the impact economy.
Etelle (47:08):
Yeah.
You know, I do have a, a bigthought about what's been going
on lately.
You know, USAD was put into thewood, wood chipper by Mr.
Musk and the un has been underimmense pressure because Trump
cut basically a third of the UNbudget.
And so, you know, there's a lotof NGOs that are flailing and
(47:31):
failing.
You know, philanthropy justcan't fill the gap, right?
And so many people who wanted tobe in the impact space from the
NGO side of things are justdesperate.
I see many people that I know inhuman rights and humanitarian
and public health andenvironmental space.
Just experiencing layoffs andheartbreak.
(47:54):
But I would say now is the timeto be really creative, right?
So, for example, lot of NGOsthat were fighting plastic have
been gutted.
Their funding is gone.
But I wish I had my shoes herewith me, I have these like shoes
(48:14):
that are made out of upcycledplastic and my handbag also, I
don't have it here, otherwise Iwould show it, it's made out of
upcycled ocean, like marineplastic, so it's very resilient
and it can get wet and it'sgreat.
It's gone through several likeyears of an active toddler
survived bad weather and it is agreat bag.
You know, I have socks made outof recycled plastic.
(48:35):
My sunglasses are made out ofrecycled plastic.
I think now is a great time totry to move to the private
sector and to take overcompanies that were kind of
leaning towards doing good andmake that their core so that
it's basically like how can allof these people from NGOs.
(48:59):
And just wash into the privatesector and transform companies
and hijack them for good, if youwill, or you know, start
competitors.
But the where the whole point isthat it's a social enterprise
and I just think like the coffeecompanies.
Are doing good ethical coffee.
(49:20):
Women owned, indigenous owned,organic, direct trade, living
income.
Regenerative.
This is so important for my workbecause what it means is I can
say there are companies outthere that are doing good and
doing well at the same time.
This is proof positive that theindustry can change or that it
must change and.
(49:43):
You will not go bankrupt if youdo all these good things for
farmers and forests for peoplein planet.
This is like our moment, ourgeneration, we are being called
to step up.
It's a kind of do or dieinflection point.
But I truly believe we can, wecan do this.
I think we can.
Abigail (50:00):
Wow.
I think I know your answer, butI always ask if people are
optimistic about the planet withrespect to climate change, but
you're just.
Effusively optimistic, I thinkas a human, which is, wonderful.
Etelle (50:15):
I have little moments of despair on, but I try to hold on
to hope.
And there's a beautiful quotethat someone told me a while
ago.
They said hope is not a lotteryticket that you clutch on your
couch and like, you know, holdonto hope is a battering ram.
You just like knock this doorsdown with your hope.
And I think that is the kind ofhope that I try.
(50:38):
To hold onto and to embody.
So I don't necessarily feel ahuge amount of optimism about
the way that our planet isheading in terms of climate
chaos, but I feel this immenseoptimism that we can do better,
how we must do better.
Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation
for a happy planet.
I am your host, Abigail Carroll.
You might wanna listen to thispodcast before you pour yourself
that cherished morning cup ofcoffee.
Our guest today is Atel hie, aFrench born Yale Law School
graduate, living in Denmark, whoset out to make the coffee
(00:28):
industry more environmentallyfriendly through her
organization Coffee Watch.
What she discovered, however,was that environmental
degradation was just the tip ofthe iceberg.
The coffee industry is fraughtwith human injustices as well,
including human trafficking,child labor, and slavery.
(00:50):
Despite these horrors, ITEL isconfident that she can make a
difference by getting all of usto vote with our pocketbooks and
put pressure on our localgovernments.
Can we have our coffee and ourhappy planet too.
Let's hear it from a tell.
Welcome to the program Mattel.
Etelle (01:13):
It's so great to be here.
Thank you.
Having me on.
Abigail (01:17):
Well, I am, I'm delighted to have you on,
although I must say you've mademe have to really question my
role in the world when everymorning I get up and I look
forward to my first cup ofcoffee of the day.
Etelle (01:33):
So many people, me, I've ruined their
Abigail (01:36):
you may have ruined my life, but, you know I I still
appreciate it.
So you have started anorganization called Coffee Watch
tell me about your organizationand what problem you're trying
to solve here.
Etelle (01:50):
Yeah, so Coffee Watch.
I guess the easiest way todescribe it, it's as if
Greenpeace and AmnestyInternational got together and
had a baby, and that baby justwanted to work on coffee.
I say this in part because Iused to work at Green Fees and
Amnesty, so I'm very influencedby that.
(02:10):
But you know, really my dream isjust to end environmental and
social abuses and coffee andtransform the industry so that
it makes the world a betterplace with every cup.
You know, without all thisdeforestation and pesticides
soaked monoculture and slaveryand human trafficking and rape,
and child labor and poverty, wedon't need to have those in our
(02:32):
coffee.
We can absolutely have ethical,sustainable coffee.
And that's kind of my NorthStar.
Abigail (02:39):
Wow.
Okay.
You just used a lot of big wordsthere.
Slavery, deforestation,exploitation.
Like how bad is this situation?
Etelle (02:50):
Abigail, it's so bad.
I didn't even realize how bad itwas until I got geared up to
launch Coffee Watch.
I knew.
Coffee was the number six driverof deforestation in the world.
Like that is actually why Iwanted to start coffee watches.
'cause I thought, oh, you know,scientists are telling us we
don't have much time.
We have to save all theseforests before it's too late.
(03:12):
Coffee is one of the topdrivers.
You know, there's seven big, bigdrivers of deforestation in the
world.
We've gotta really change thoseand turn them around and
coffee's one of them and it getsvery short shrift.
I mean really, basically almostnobody works to.
Combat, deforestation, coffee toname and shame be kind of a
watchdog.
Abigail (03:32):
Sorry to interrupt, but why?
Why is it deforest?
Like what are, what's themechanics?
Why is coffee contributing todeforestation?
Etelle (03:40):
Oh yeah, great question.
Essentially, Abigail, let's sayyou are a company or a farmer
you know.
You're living in wherever.
Could be Colombia, Indonesia,Brazil, Mexico.
It could be Vietnam.
You buy a plot of forested land,usually that's the sort of
cheapest land.
Abigail (04:00):
Yeah.
Etelle (04:01):
You chop it down and you plant coffee there.
Abigail (04:04):
Okay.
Etelle (04:05):
That's full sun monoculture robust.
Or you buy a plot of forestedland, you keep some trees, you
chop a lot of them down, and youplant like agroforestry, Arabica
kind of coffee.
And then over time, as thecoffee gets stronger, you chop
more and more trees and it getsto be less and less shady.
And those, those ways of growingcoffee are very common.
(04:27):
That's like the old schools,your business as usual,
unethical unsustainable, modusoperandi that's characterized.
Most, most of coffee comes at atthe expense of forests.
It, it grows on what used to beforested land, but it doesn't
have to be that way.
Right?
We can grow coffee on degradedlands.
(04:48):
We can find degraded lands, infact and like regenerate them by
putting agroforestry coffee.
You plant coffee and they putlots of trees in, and among the
coffee and the coffee kind ofthe allows you financially to
make an agro forest.
That is healing the soil.
That's like, there's thiscompany called Slow Forest
Coffee, that that's their wholebusiness model.
(05:09):
They buy trashed soil that'sdestroyed and then they plant
agroforestry coffee there toheal the ecosystem.
Abigail (05:16):
Interesting.
So there are these questions,the United States and Canada,
other places where we have solarfarms, I've actually read
articles that saying likeagriculture grown under the
solar panels that are on thefields does very well'cause it
actually traps in some of thehumidity.
But maybe coffee doesn't needthat humidity.
(05:37):
I don't know.
Etelle (05:38):
No coffee does need humidity, so you're right.
I mean, the beautiful thingabout these solar farms is
actually you can marry them withagriculture.
So I, I love wine.
I'm French, you know, part of myancestors had a vineyard back in
the day.
I have a, a wine enthusiast, Iguess you could say, and I
Abigail (05:54):
you're French too, so
Etelle (05:56):
And I was very lucky to be able to be one of the
founding members of thesustainable Wine round tables
that I kind of stay plugged intonews about sustainable wine.
It turns out solar and wine loveeach other.
I guess you could say Dion, ISISand Apollo are like best buds.
Because you're right that, youknow when you have, especially
in, in the southernMediterranean region where it's
(06:18):
very hot and you have these heatdomes and you can have like
droughts when you mix.
Solar panels and vines, it canbe incredibly beneficial for the
vines and really good for thequality of the Y.
Abigail (06:31):
Interesting.
So there is a way to do this onan environmental way that is
Etelle (06:35):
Oh, totally.
Oh yeah,
Abigail (06:38):
and it's just not the cheapest way.
Etelle (06:40):
It's not necessarily the cheapest way, but you know,
you're a hundred percent right.
We can absolutely do this.
An environmental way, like thereare two paths.
We've chosen a garbage path andthere's an environmentally sound
path, and we can just shift fromone to the other.
And essentially, coffee for themost part, loves trees because
if one thing that you said, it'smoisture, coffee likes air
(07:02):
moisture, and it likes rainfall.
Coffee is a very finickysensitive plant that does not
like heat domes and superstormsand droughts and climate chaos.
It is very finicky.
It doesn't like that at all.
And trees actually not only keepair moisture, they keep soil
moisture, they keep soil health.
They act as like giant strawsand sponges that suck up water
(07:22):
when there's been a superstorm,but they also maintain moisture
and coolness when you have likea super hot drought.
So trees are awesome for mostcoffee.
We have kind of weirdly decidedto develop this full and robust
strain, which is kind of astupid, weird, bad human idea
that we.
Maybe you shouldn't revisit.
Abigail (07:43):
Is that because of harvesting?
Because the trees would get inthe way, in the way of like
machinery.
I mean, I know that's a problemwith crops.
Like why you,
Etelle (07:51):
If you wanna do highly mechanized, yes, a hundred
percent.
If you wanna do highly
Abigail (07:55):
need are new machines.
Etelle (07:57):
Yeah.
Abigail (07:58):
Yeah.
Etelle (07:59):
Yeah.
Solar.
Yeah.
These huge plantations that arefull sun robusta.
They lend themselves much betterto highly mechanized
agriculture.
Abigail (08:09):
Yeah.
So, so the deforestation, theenvironmental part of this is
one thing that, that coffeewatch is taking on, but you also
talk about just basically humanexploitation and, we've talked
about slavery.
Tell me about the humancomponent here and, we have
(08:31):
these international rules aboutslavery and things like that.
How can this be happening todayin 2025?
Etelle (08:38):
It's crazy.
It just batshit crazy.
I, this is sounds like a realdowner and it will get better
afterwards, I promise, becauseI'll talk about solutions and we
can make it better.
Let me just be very blunt.
Pretty much every time you drinka cup of coffee, you're drinking
(08:59):
poverty, probably extremepoverty, and many times that you
drink a cup of coffee, you aredrinking child labor or slavery,
or dead bondage or humantrafficking, or some weird toxic
combination of that.
Abigail (09:19):
Hmm.
Etelle (09:20):
And I say this because.
There are millions of kidsworking at coffee, like
millions.
Literally there the, there's noone fantastically
methodologically sound, reallygood meta study of child labor
and coffee.
Like we have something like thatin cocoa actually, that was done
by these incredible scholars atNewark and before that, Tulane,
it was paid for by theDepartment of Labor before it
(09:42):
got dozed by Mr.
Musk.
Thank you.
And so we don't have somethingquite like that for coffee.
What we have is the best studiesthat.
The most methodologicallyimpressive scholars, either NGO
or university folks have done indifferent places.
So here's just like threeexamples, but I could go on all
night.
But you know, in the interest oftime, it's really, really
(10:04):
important.
Study was done on Ethiopia bythese scholars from Scandinavian
universities, some of whom areof Ethiopian origin.
It focused on Ethiopian coffeefarmers and child labor.
They found that around 91% ofcoffee farmer families were
using child labor.
Then there's another study thatwas done also actually funded by
(10:27):
US Department of Labor before itgot do thank you, Mr.
Musk Trump.
And that study in Columbia foundthat around 74% of coffee
farming families in that countryuse child labor.
They're studying Honduras 64%basically.
Every country you look at wherethere's been any studies, they
all tell us that we are talkingabout the majority of coffee
(10:53):
farming families using childlabor.
They don't do that becausethey're sadistic whackadoodles.
Abigail (10:59):
Mm.
Etelle (10:59):
They do that because they're extremely poor and they
often have no choice.
Starve and go to school or comeoutta school and work in coffee,
and then we can all eat maybe.
So they're so food insecure.
That is why they're sendingtheir kids to do what is
backbreaking difficult work thatthey do not want their kids to
(11:19):
do.
You know, when you talk to them,parents will tell you, if this
breaks my heart, I hate it.
I do not wanna do this.
I have
Abigail (11:26):
They want better for their children and you know, as,
as all parents.
Etelle (11:29):
of course.
But so basically when you do themath, you start to realize.
Hundreds of thousands here.
Millions there.
Millions.
Year and a half here.
Tens of thousands.
Ba We are talking about millionsof kids in coffee.
That is why I say if you drinkcoffee and you are not paying
attention, you're definitelydrinking child labor.
Abigail (11:54):
I saw some, brands that didn't really surprise me.
The Starbucks, the Nestle's withthe, you know, is it just them?
Or is this really broad spreadto kind of all, or let's say 90%
of the coffee that, that's inthe supermarket today.
Etelle (12:12):
I would say, you know, there are a lot of big brands
that we have caught.
Over and over at Coffee Watchand investigations that we've
done with Sister NGOs.
You, we've only been operationalfor less than a year, but we
manage with the help of theseamazing sister NGOs to pull off
investigations in China, in Yan,which is where almost other
(12:34):
coffee's grown in Mexico, inColombia, in Brazil.
We have some more teams on theground right now.
We've found so many big brands.
With a range of problems,slavery, human trafficking or
labor, dead bondage, childlabor, people working insane
(12:56):
hours.
And by insane hours, I mean like18 hours a day.
And I mean, people who areworking, like almost all the
coffee farmers that weinterview, and especially the
harvesters, the farm workers,they talk about working seven
days a week.
For three months straight.
Dental desk, if not more.
(13:19):
That's just the norm.
That's not like apples or ithappens occasionally.
Like just imagine if somebodymade you work 12 hours a day or
18 hours a day, seven days aweek for three months with no
sick leave.
No, no, no PPE, no personalprotective gear, no medical
care, no.
(13:39):
No social security, no pension.
Most of these people are ghostemployees.
They don't even like, haveproper papers.
They're not really registered,so they don't get pensions, they
don't get social security.
We, in fact, titled a wholereport coffee laundering, ghost
farms, and coffee laundering,because that's just the norm.
So essentially we found.
(14:00):
Oh, so many abuses, but just toname a few.
Like we, we did a petition to UScustoms, which hasn't yet been
dod hopefully it doesn't get so.
To CBP you can do somethingcalled a 3 0 7 petition, where
you ask customs to block coffeetainted by slavery and for
slavery from entering the us Wedid that and we named in our 3 0
7 complaint.
Starbucks Nestle, McDonald's,JDE ili.
Abigail (14:25):
How's Dunking Donuts doing?
That's a New England favorite.
Etelle (14:28):
mean, so Duncan is, is named in our 3 0 7 petition.
We literally believe that theyhave slavery and forced labor in
their coffee supply chain.
We think that they're buying, Imean, of course this has to get
adjudicated by customs.
They're reviewing our data.
They may find it in our favor.
They may find against.
We certainly produced a hugeamount of information.
(14:50):
I think it's one of the bestcases I've ever seen.
Go to CBP.
A lot of experts helped us makeit really top tier.
But yeah, we, we suspect, wethink we allege that they are
buying coffee from companiesthat have not just a little bit
of slavery, but a widespread andsystematic and recurring problem
of slavery over and over andover in their supply chain.
Abigail (15:12):
Oh,
Etelle (15:13):
So it's, it's one of the top drivers of slavery in
Brazil.
And Brazil is the number
Abigail (15:18):
I read one of your articles.
Yeah.
Brutal.
Etelle (15:21):
But you asked
Abigail (15:23):
Sorry.
Etelle (15:23):
question about like, does everyone have this problem?
And I will just say that a lotof companies think they're so
amazing and actually they tendto, a lot of them have many
problems.
We found so many
Abigail (15:39):
like all of the brands that are like environmentally or
sustainable or,
Etelle (15:43):
yeah, there, there was, we found slavery in certified
coffee farms.
There's this coffee farm, it'scalled like the cup of
Excellence.
It's like the Emmy Award winnerof coffee You were found
(16:26):
connected to maybe forcedslavery.
Yeah.
Abigail (16:32):
So I wanna back up a little bit and before we get to
hopefully a, a brighter topic ofwhat you're doing and what we
can do differently why coffee?
Etelle (16:43):
Oh, I need coffee.
Just because it's one of the topseven drivers of deforestation
in the world.
And a lot of people work on theother drivers, you know?
So when I was at Greenpeace Ihad a front row seat to doing
this amazing work on palm oiland palm and paper.
It really inspired me.
It taught me so much.
It got me all revved up.
When I left Greenpeace andhelped to get Mighty Earth going
(17:06):
which is, you know, mostly XGreenpeace at, at the beginning
X Greenpeace folks, we keptworking on cattle, soy, and palm
oil, which are like the top.
Drivers, you know, ofdeforestation.
But we also managed to do thefirst ever global campaigns on
cocoa and on rubberdeforestation.
And we really helped turn aroundthose industries.
(17:28):
When I was at Miami Earth, itwas like a bombshell went off in
cocoa and in rubber.
And it's not that, you know,these industries are perfect by
any means, but the palm oilindustry is night and day better
to what it used to be 17 yearsago, night and day.
So many companies now are like,no deforestation, no Pete, no
exploitation, no.
(17:48):
They've cracked down on rape,forced labor, slavery, they've
cracked down on burning fires.
You know, people just likeburned the forest'cause it's
cheaper to do that than Oz.
Which is terrible.
Obviously.
It's, it's ghastly.
So anyways, Paulo got so muchbetter.
It taught me what we can do towin and then, yeah.
(18:09):
In part because Mighty Earthreally made deforestation and
cocoa and rubber a big thing.
I would say that now the otherseven high risk commodities,
there are folks really doinggreat work on all the other
seven except coffee.
So that's why I wanted to takeon coffee.
Abigail (18:25):
yeah, it wasn't because you have a particular, do you
drink coffee?
Etelle (18:29):
I do, I do.
I love coffee in Brazilian.
It comes from this coffeeproducing region, and I've seen
with my own eyes, you know, theyused to work for Greenpeace in
Southeast Asia.
I saw.
Terrible stuff in coffee andVietnam and Indonesia, and you
just like, it's so extreme.
Poverty is so common in coffee,and I just thought, wow, this is
(18:49):
so disgusting and wrong andhorrible.
But really it was because we'rein this planetary crisis where
we've gotta get ahead of climatechaos and mass extinction and
agriculture is like 30% ofclimate change and 80% of mass
extinction.
80% of biodiversity losses fromour agriculture system.
So I thought, okay, let's try todo that for coffee.
(19:10):
And then once I got revved up tostart coffee watch, then I
realized there's like slaves andkids and trafficking.
Like what?
Abigail (19:19):
Oh.
It's, it doesn't really surpriseme.
The, the abuse of the planetwould go hand in hand with the
abuse of its inhabitants, likeit's human inhabitants.
I feel like it's a, thementality is kind of similar.
Etelle (19:33):
You are so Right.
That's a very deep pointactually.
And you know, it's true what yousay.
And it actually applies also toocean stuff like the.
that are raping the ocean.
You know, IU fishing, partfishing.
Yeah.
Destroying marine protectedareas, things like that.
Catching juveniles outta season.
(19:54):
They tend to also
Abigail (19:56):
Yeah.
Etelle (19:57):
forced labor and seafood slavery.
So you're right, it's like thetwo sides of the same coin.
The way you treat mother earthand the way you treat humans.
If you're awful to what, you'reprobably doing terrible things
to both.
It's true, isn't it?
Abigail (20:12):
So what do we do?
Etelle (20:14):
Oh my God, there's so much we can do.
That's the good news.
Abigail (20:17):
So what are you doing?
First of all?
What's Coffee Watch doing?
And then I wanna know how all ofus listening can be part of your
movement and what we can do tohelp.
Etelle (20:27):
Abigail, you know, no one should feel despairing and
down a heartened and like doomscrolling into a place of
cynicism and apathy becauseactually.
I truly believe we can makecoffee better, and I think we
can do it faster than palm oil.
I think in five years we couldbe having a totally different
(20:47):
conversation.
I'll call you up and I'll belike, oh my God, it's worked.
I really, really, really believeit.
I'm in it to win it.
I think we can do this.
So, I mean, basically that wehave this immense, gorgeous
power corporations, and oftengovernments don't want you to
know that, but you are sopowerful.
And if people really knew that,then they would tap into their
(21:09):
power and then things wouldchange a lot.
And so maybe that's whycorporations and governments
don't want us to know.
But for coffee, you can votewith your wallet and buy ethical
coffee.
It sort of depends where youlive.
If you're in Maine, if you're inCalifornia, if you're in South
Africa or Australia or Mexico orIndonesia, there's different,
(21:30):
like good brands that areavailable.
You know, London Kiss the Hippo.
If you're in Denmark, I wouldsay go for slow food coffee.
If you're in Indonesia, I'd sayby coffee.
There's, you know, a bunch ofgood brands all over the world
and
Abigail (21:45):
we'll put those at the, in the show notes so people can
get them unless you
Etelle (21:48):
yeah.
Abigail (21:49):
maybe afterwards you wanna name some,
Etelle (21:51):
We actually created this one stop shop page on our
website where people can go tofind all the solutions.
So there's this little guidethat we made towards buying
responsibly sourced coffeethat's like, well, ethical and
sustainable, and we put all theguides that everyone has ever
created to buying sustainablecoffee and like what you could
look for and things to keep inmind and what to be aware of.
(22:14):
But you don't just have to buygood coffee for yourself.
Like it, all it takes is onehour of research to find the
brand that matches your values.
You know, that's like directtrade and living income and
agroforestry shade grown, allthat good, good stuff.
You know,
Abigail (22:29):
Can we believe those labels though?
Because you just mentionedbefore that you know, brands
that are presenting themselvesas you know, sustainable aren't
always
Etelle (22:39):
I would, yeah, I would not just rely on certifications.
Abigail (22:42):
yeah.
Etelle (22:43):
Notifications alone are not a guarantee really, of
sustainability for the mostpart.
But if you look at our littleguide, it tells you all the
things to look for that, thegreenwashing to be aware of.
And then all the companies thatwe think are doing this for
real, real.
Abigail (22:58):
Yeah.
Etelle (22:59):
But basically one hour of your time, you find the right
coffee company for you.
Or maybe 3, 4, 5.
You order a bunch of them.
You decide which one is thetastiest that you love the most.
Then you can just keep orderingthat indefinitely.
Right.
And you know, the other thing Iwould say is not just buying
from the heart and voting withyour wallet for your own coffee.
(23:19):
You can like gift sustainablecoffee for brunches when you're
invited for birthdays, for bigholidays for.
And you can tell people like,oh, Abigail, it's your birthday.
I love you.
I love the planet, therefore,and you love coffee.
So I'm giving you like fabulousplanet, loving people, friendly
coffee that's not trashingfarmers and forests.
Happy birthday.
If you want more, let me know.
(23:41):
So basically you become like anambassador when you do that.
And I would say that's true evenat a bigger scale if you're able
to change your university oryour school or your office.
because often your consumptionis kind of peanuts compared to
the institutions that you're apart of, your church, your
mosque, your, you know, whereverit is that you worship.
(24:02):
So that's the whole like votewith your wallet side of things.
And depending on how big youdouble down on that, you can
become like a change maker.
But then also.
Don't forget, most of yourlisteners probably live in a
democracy and not in NorthKorea, I would say, unless you
maybe have lots in North
Abigail (24:22):
from North Korea yet, but I'll let you know if that
happens.
Etelle (24:26):
You secretly have lots of Russian, north Korean,
Hungarian listeners.
But no.
In principle, most people whoare listening to your show are
in a democracy.
Like if you message your electedrepresentative just once, that
probably has the value of buyingsustainable coffee for a year.
Abigail (24:47):
Wow.
Etelle (24:47):
And it can be on their social, it can be their email.
Those people work for you andthey care about what you have to
say.
They tabulate
Abigail (24:56):
the moment.
Etelle (24:57):
Well, it doesn't feel like that, of course, because,
you know, our democratic systemis a bit broken in a lot of
people.
Have checked out but are nowchecking back in.
I feel huge hope that people arerising up and feeling their
power and starting to play andlike, look, there's a lot of
folks in Congress and Senate whowon't do town hall meetings
(25:18):
anymore,
Abigail (25:19):
Oh, I know they're
Etelle (25:20):
but that's because they're scared, because like
they have their right to bescared, you know, because people
are so angry at them and Ithink, you know, the phone lines
are melting down in Congressand, but.
This is good, right?
We have a democracy maybe in theUS and other places where your
listers might be like Canada.
And to the extent that we haveit, using it is powerful because
(25:43):
our lawmakers can pass betterlaws.
There are even laws on the booksright now proposed that could
help make coffee moresustainable.
So just saying, I'm yourconstituent.
I care about coffee.
That's awesome and powerful.
So voting with your wallet isreally cool.
Using your power as a voter anda constituent to tell your
(26:06):
elected representative, like, Idrink coffee.
You drink coffee, the coffeeindustry sucks.
Whatcha doing about it?
And it can be that simple.
And then I would say it's notjust that we have this power
with our lawmakers to someextent, they might not listen to
us, but they do tabulate everysingle
Abigail (26:23):
Right, of course.
Yeah.
Etelle (26:25):
But companies are even more sensitive.
If you go into companies andcertification schemes like
social or you email them, theytotally freak out if you talk to
the manager or the barista, yourfavorite cafe or in your
favorite restaurant and tellthem like, oh, did you know this
(26:45):
about coffee?
I come here all the time.
You know, I'm a regular.
That registers like there's no
Abigail (26:52):
I'm sure.
Etelle (26:53):
That really registers companies are very sensitive to
consumer unrest.
They do not like having theirconsumers know that there's all
these bad things like slaveryand deforestation in their
supply chains.
That makes them veryuncomfortable.
And I would say besidesmessaging companies, messaging
our representatives and votingwith your wallet, there's all
this like power that comes fromsigning petitions.
(27:17):
So we curated on that same page,that like one stop shop, every
good thing you can do forcoffee, all the petitions that
other people have made forsustainable coffee.
And then we started two of them.
And so now you can just go andclick boop and that's also
pretty high value because thosethings really scare their
(27:42):
recipients.
Yeah, we have now a hundred.
Over a hundred thousandsignatures on one petition, over
70,000 on another petition.
That's the kind of numbers thatreally, it gets you like a
meeting with a C-suite.
It gets you CEO who feelsanxious and I'm, I battled on
(28:02):
this.
That's, that's not a, an easything to do, but it, it's
powerful.
I mean, it is easy to signpetitions, but it's not an easy
thing to grow your number.
It's that big.
But I think petitions arepowerful.
They're all there on that page.
And you know, the last thing isthat most people just don't know
how bad coffee is, and you canbecome like a truth ambassador.
(28:23):
I, I'm actually a kind of glasshuff full person.
Or maybe we should say Mug Hufffull person or Cup huff, full
person.
Because it's coffee.
I think most people are notsociopaths and are nice,
fundamentally good humans.
I really believe that.
And if they knew how shittytheir coffee was, they would not
be drinking it.
They would be like, what?
I don't want to drink childlabor in my coffee.
(28:43):
I'm spit it out.
You know?
And I think that just tellingpeople about what's going on is
really powerful.
And sometimes that can feelawkward or weird.
So we also curated this all thebest documentaries about the
problems in coffee and thesolutions in coffee.
So if it's just like watching afilm with your family.
(29:06):
your significant other, or yourfriends, you know that if you
screen one of these films,you're basically raising
awareness in a whole other humanor a whole gaggle of other
people.
So yeah, screening films is afantastic way to spread the
word, and none of these are madeby us, but the, the filmmaker
all just very kindly let us puttheir stuff up and some of it is
(29:30):
extremely disturbing.
And heartbreaking, but some ofit's really inspirational and
filled me with hope and beautyand
Abigail (29:37):
Mm.
Etelle (29:37):
energy, and I hope it does that.
For any of your listeners who golook at the
Abigail (29:42):
I think this is amazing.
It's amazing to hear that thesethings work from an insider.
I mean, that I wouldn't,honestly, I, I, maybe I am
cynical it.
I mean, I understand the votewith your wallet problem, but I
don't know that I would'vethought that signing petitions
really made a big difference.
I don't know that I would'vethought that.
(30:03):
You know shouting out on socialmedia would've made a difference
to these companies.
So I think it's reallyinteresting to hear that and
Etelle (30:11):
Can I tell you a funny story about
Abigail (30:13):
I would love it.
Etelle (30:14):
So back when I was in Mighty Earth and I was starting
these campaigns on cocoa to tryto change the chocolate
industry, you know, the cocoaindustry, I got these wonderful
folks at a petition group calledSome of Us, which is rebranded
now as echo.
They did a petition.
Hammering a chocolate companyfor their deforestation and the
(30:35):
fact that they were growingeverything in pesticides of
monoculture and didn't even careabout agroforestry at all, their
carbon, their biodiversity,terrible.
And for months, I'd been tryingto reach that company to start a
real serious negotiation to getthem to like agree to no
deforestation and agroforestrywith time-bound implementation
(30:56):
plan.
And I just couldn't get through.
I was like, I'm gonna have tosue them, like what am I gonna
do?
And then we did the petition,and then two days later, I got
all these desperate messages inmy inbox being like, oh, we'd
love to have a meeting.
We can't believe we missed yourearlier messages.
They went in our folder, theywere like, when can we meet
(31:17):
tomorrow?
And then at the meeting they'relike, okay, okay.
No deforestation.
We can do that, but Agroforestryis way too much.
And I was like.
Like really?
They're like, okay, okay.
(32:03):
Some is very funny.
It really like unblocked thiscompany.
So yeah,
Abigail (32:11):
That is a great
Etelle (32:12):
every time.
That was sort of like a bestcase scenario, but yeah, it
totally works.
People should feel so proud andenergized by the fact that we
have these amazing superpowersat our fingertips.
Abigail (32:27):
Hmm.
Etelle (32:27):
we just, you know, society doesn't tell us, but we
are so strong and powerful.
They have millions of dollars,but we have millions of people
who are nice, good people whocare.
And that is better, you know.
Abigail (32:41):
Wow.
You sent shivers up my spine.
So let's, let's say you get somechange.
You've gotta follow up.
They say, oh, we'll do a littlebit of the agroforestry, but,
but maybe,, they just do toolittle.
You know what, what, how.
How does Coffee watch make surethese changes are implemented
(33:01):
once they put the pressure onthese companies.
And what's your follow through?
Etelle (33:06):
These are excellent questions.
Essentially some things arecheap and easy and some things
are really hard to follow up on.
So deforestation.
Amazingly, Abigail, we now havereally good cheap satellite maps
that allow us to thank God.
Track deforestation in, in realtime, like very precise.
(33:29):
You know, it used to be so hardand now it's like one meter by
one meter.
You can see all the forestsgetting chopped down.
So you know, if a company isdeforesting and they have some
transparency in their supplychain, like they've disclosed
their supply chain, which iswhat we always ask down to
either the.
(33:49):
Farm Gate Polygon or the GPSpoint at the heart of the farm
or the co-op, you know, or atleast the region.
So you know, if Abigail and Iettare both buying from the same
village and we're the two bigbuyers, and then there's
deforestation in the village,basically you just write to
Abigail and Itan.
You're like, which one of youhas this deforestation?
Or is both of you, you know?
So basically the traceabilityand the satellite maps.
(34:11):
Allow you to just checkdeforestation pretty easy.
You don't have to dotraceability over and over and
over and over a million times,right?
You know, once it's disclosed,unless the supply chain changes,
it's there.
So that helps too.
Agroforestry, I think we're onthe verge of these huge
breakthroughs thanks to AI andever better satellite maps where
(34:31):
we will now be able to tell.
Over time if something is reggreening, so let's say Abigail
has a big bad monoculture, fullsun, RIBA plantation of coffee
like in Brazil or Vietnam,number one, number two, coffee
producing countries.
They're really addicted to thatform of coffee growing.
Abigail (34:52):
Hmm.
Etelle (34:53):
we signed an agreement and Abigail's like, fine, okay,
I'm gonna transition toAgroforestry.
Give me 10 years.
We would make like a time-boundimplementation plan and.
Maps would now reveal ifAbigail's farm is reg greening
or not.
So you plant these trees in andaround the coffee.
It could be zebras, could bepolka dots, could be donuts,
(35:16):
could be all over.
Ty, ty and over like.
You know, we do stop checksevery year and we can see the
progress or lack thereof.
That I think is, is alreadyhappening to some extent.
So checking Agroforestry hasbeen getting easier and I think
will get a lot easier.
What's harder is human rightsviolations, right?
(35:38):
But pretty easy is whetherAbigail or whatever company, you
know, Nestle, latza, AilyDuncan, McDonald's, whatever, if
they commit to paying a livingincome, then that's pretty easy
to check, right?
Because like.
If Abigail has a firm and I'mworking there, anyone can just
(35:59):
go ask it.
Dad, what do you earn?
And it's not like a huge thingof trust that I have to tell
you, oh, I've been raped orlike, I, you know, was
trafficked.
Just telling you how much Iearn.
That's, that's kind, doable.
You can even, Abigail can evenpay its debt with like mobile
money nowadays.
That's a huge breakthrough
Abigail (36:18):
Right.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of traceable, you
Etelle (36:20):
So I think because so much child labor comes from
extreme poverty, if companiescommitted to living income and
paid a living wage for the farmworkers and living income price
for the small holder farmers,then that would be pretty easy
to monitor.
And my guess is that then childlabor would plummet.
(36:42):
Now you'd still have to monitorit.
It's not easy, but people do it.
There's methodologically sound,ways to go do audits and check
about slavery, trafficking,child labor, sexual gender based
violence and exploitation, and,you know, inequality.
We have like a five hourconversation about this.
I love that stuff because it'smy passion.
(37:03):
But it is harder.
You need boots on the ground.
It's more expensive.
It's more time consuming.
It's often really great toinvolve local civil society
groups that are trusted, so thatis complicated too, because
let's say, you know, if you'resourcing from 19 countries, oh,
that's,
Abigail (37:19):
Right.
Etelle (37:21):
but but it's doable.
It's
Abigail (37:22):
Hmm,
Etelle (37:23):
doable.
Abigail (37:24):
interesting.
So well you brought up aninteresting question and about
paying livable wages.
If the coffee companies areeradicating poverty by paying
living wages, what should I bepaying for a cup of coffee?
Like, is there some data onthat?
What should a cup of coffee costme today in the United States?
Etelle (37:47):
Okay.
I think it's, it's, it's oftenkind of, there's this bugaboo or
is it bug bear?
I know one of the two that if wehave a living income for coffee
workers, everyone will gobankrupt up and down the supply
chain and you know, the coffeewill become unbearably
(38:08):
expensive.
The truth is if your listenersare in New York.
And they go to a regular deliand they get like a low end,
regular cup of coffee, not afancy latte.
It costs about$3 and 12 cents.
And coffee farmers will only gettwo, three, 4 cents of that.
So to pay a living income andalso.
(38:33):
Have human rights monitoring anda grievance mechanism that
people can access and nodeforestation, coffee, and also
agroforestry.
Like all those things, literallyyour cup of coffee would just be
2 cents more.
And here's kind of thebreakdown, even for a higher end
cup of coffee.
People just can't really believethis is true, but I swear to God
(38:54):
it's true.
Here's the breakdown of yourmorning cup of coffee
percentages.
In your cup of latte that youbuy at a cafe like a chain 0.4%
of the money that you pay foryour cup of coffee goes to the
coffee farmer.
4% of your cup goes to pay forcoffee, and 0.4% goes to the
(39:17):
coffee farmer.
Abigail (39:18):
hmm.
And the truth is we wannasupport these farmers.
Not only do we want them to havea sustainable wage, but we wanna
buy coffee so that they, theseeconomies
Etelle (39:28):
That is all bad.
Abigail (39:29):
on that, I'm just wondering what, what have Trump
tariffs done to the coffeeindustry and how has that
changing everything?
Etelle (39:37):
Oh, it's really bad.
It's so super bad for kinds ofcountries that grow coffee.
It's bad for coffee growingcountries that are extremely
dependent on the United States.
Because of geographical,geographical proximity, for
example.
So Mexico sends almost all theirexports of coffee to the us,
(39:59):
which makes sense.
They're across the border, theymake a lot, we drink a lot
Mexican coffee.
I think a little bit less thanhalf is for internal
consumption, and almost all ofthe exports are for the US and
Nicaragua also.
Is very dependent on the USmarket, but you know, not just
(40:20):
Mexico and Nicaragua.
Guatemala is super dependent.
Columbia is super dependent.
Okay?
Basically geographic proximitymeans that if you historically
just sold a lot to the UnitedStates and didn't bother to
cultivate relationships withEuropean buyers and Asian buyers
and whatever.
Now you're hostage to theAmerican market, right?
(40:41):
So that's one kind of countrythat's really royally screwed by
Trump tariffs.
And then the other kind ofcountry that's super screwed are
the countries with very hightariffs.
Abigail (40:51):
Yeah.
Etelle (40:52):
Brazil makes about a third of global coffee, and they
got slapped with 50% tariffsbecause Trump was angry.
That was nato.
Was being held accountable for acoup.
Maybe it's like cos of the worldunite or something.
I dunno.
But so poor Brazil got slappedwith a 50% tariff.
That's insanely high.
Abigail (41:14):
Hmm.
Etelle (41:14):
Indonesia, Vietnam, Vietnam's the second biggest
producer, Indonesia's the,actually, I should say Brazil
was screwed.
Vietnam is the number two coffeeproducing country.
They're not so dependent on theus but they have very high
tariffs, like 20%.
Columbia's the third biggestcoffee producing country.
They are high dependency andhigh tariff, and Indonesia also.
(41:38):
They're not so dependent on theUS market, but very high
tariffs.
So the top four coffee producingcountries got Ed Because they
just got very high tariffs.
And then some countries thatare, especially in Central
America very dependent on the USgot F-Ed.
Also because they had diettariffs, but mostly because
they're just hostage to ourmarket.
(41:59):
So yeah, Trump's tariffs arecataclysm for coffee farmers.
They're already very poor.
They're among some of theworld's poorest people.
Most coffee farmers earn lessthan$3 a day.
Many of them earn less than$2and 15 cents a day.
That's the extreme povertythreshold that the world makes,
that they could, ill afford tolose any money.
(42:22):
And the countries that aregrowing coffee are also not rich
and are in need of that revenue,and they're getting effed, it's
Abigail (42:31):
It worries me that.
I know that you've said just,it's just a few cents more to
have a, a workforce that's wellpaid and have agro forest
agroforestry.
But I worry that these tariffscould just be the excuse that
the companies use to not makethis change.
And, and so how do you, how doyou combat that?
Etelle (42:53):
So the tariffs are already having an impact.
The price of coffee is going up,and one of the things that I've
learned recently that was reallydisturbing is that often
companies will raise the priceabove and beyond what they had
to because of something liketariffs.
(43:14):
They'll just tack on a littleextra for profits.
That tends to be more true forbig companies than small.
But yeah, and then they don'tnecessarily bring the prices
down.
And you also have somethingcalled Tril where you'll just
get less coffee for the sameprice.
That's again, more like bigcompanies that are very
sophisticated in their packagingand have the ability to do
(43:35):
revamps like that where smallcompanies might not be able to.
But, i'm extremely preoccupiedthat entire coffee farming
regions like Japa and Mexicoand, and Brazil will experience
major blows in terms of likeeconomic collapse Because
(43:59):
everything runs on coffee.
That's like the lifeblood ofthose regions, you know, half a
person coffee.
Abigail (44:04):
It makes your work all the more important.
Etelle (44:08):
We did a whole paper on coffee tariffs, kind of begging
the Trump administration toexempt coffee because it's also
crazy'cause you can't grow it inAmerica.
You can grow like this tinyamount of coffee in Hawaii and
Puerto Rico.
You'd literally, you'd have tolike raise Olive Florida and.
Just mow down Hawaii, you stillwouldn't get enough land to grow
(44:32):
our coffee.
You know, it's it's crazy.
It, it makes no sense because atariff is usually for something
that you, America wouldotherwise be able to
Abigail (44:41):
Right.
Exactly
Etelle (44:43):
cannot grow that coffee in us.
Abigail (44:46):
That's like spot on.
I wonder if he drinks coffee.
He probably doesn't drinkcoffee.
Etelle (44:51):
does not drink coffee.
No.
Abigail (44:52):
Otherwise it would matter.
Etelle (44:55):
he doesn't, but he does love McDonald's.
So McDonald's is one of thebiggest purveyors of coffee in
the world.
Maybe they'll convince him tomake an exemption, his
secretaries of commerce, howHoward Lutnick did go on TV on
Squawk Box and announce thatcoffee would be exempt.
But we haven't seen that.
There is a petition right nowthat was started by
(45:18):
Representative Ana, who'samazing.
He's a California congressman.
Really, really cool.
He created a petition toactually ask Congress to repeal
tariffs on coffee because coffeefarmers are so poor.
This will push entire regionsinto collapse.
(45:41):
have to deal with like massmigration flows and craziness
and political upheaval andviolence, no doubt would ensue
from economic collapse.
So yeah, we, it's much better tolike not have coffee tariffs for
a lot of reasons.
Abigail (45:57):
so I think that should be on our list of things to do
you, you know, we talked about.
Contacting your electedrepresentatives, but maybe
that's a two part, like,
Etelle (46:07):
It's on our page, it's on that webpage I talked about
with all the petitions.
You just go click and you cansign.
It will go to your,automatically, you know, you,
you populate your address and itwill find your representative
for you.
Abigail (46:22):
All right.
We wanna vote with our wallet.
We wanna message ourrepresentatives.
We wanna lash out on socialmedia.
We wanna sign petitions,particularly yours, on the
website.
And we wanna be our ownambassadors bringing, sharing
the beautiful coffee brands withfriends and family so that they
(46:43):
learn that you can have yourcoffee and your agroforestry
too.
Etelle (46:49):
Abi, can you please be my spokesperson?
Abigail (46:57):
I wanna know if you have any advice for other
entrepreneurs, either ofnonprofits or of profit
businesses that are, that aretrying to, trying to make a dent
in the impact economy.
Etelle (47:08):
Yeah.
You know, I do have a, a bigthought about what's been going
on lately.
You know, USAD was put into thewood, wood chipper by Mr.
Musk and the un has been underimmense pressure because Trump
cut basically a third of the UNbudget.
And so, you know, there's a lotof NGOs that are flailing and
(47:31):
failing.
You know, philanthropy justcan't fill the gap, right?
And so many people who wanted tobe in the impact space from the
NGO side of things are justdesperate.
I see many people that I know inhuman rights and humanitarian
and public health andenvironmental space.
Just experiencing layoffs andheartbreak.
(47:54):
But I would say now is the timeto be really creative, right?
So, for example, lot of NGOsthat were fighting plastic have
been gutted.
Their funding is gone.
But I wish I had my shoes herewith me, I have these like shoes
(48:14):
that are made out of upcycledplastic and my handbag also, I
don't have it here, otherwise Iwould show it, it's made out of
upcycled ocean, like marineplastic, so it's very resilient
and it can get wet and it'sgreat.
It's gone through several likeyears of an active toddler
survived bad weather and it is agreat bag.
You know, I have socks made outof recycled plastic.
(48:35):
My sunglasses are made out ofrecycled plastic.
I think now is a great time totry to move to the private
sector and to take overcompanies that were kind of
leaning towards doing good andmake that their core so that
it's basically like how can allof these people from NGOs.
(48:59):
And just wash into the privatesector and transform companies
and hijack them for good, if youwill, or you know, start
competitors.
But the where the whole point isthat it's a social enterprise
and I just think like the coffeecompanies.
Are doing good ethical coffee.
(49:20):
Women owned, indigenous owned,organic, direct trade, living
income.
Regenerative.
This is so important for my workbecause what it means is I can
say there are companies outthere that are doing good and
doing well at the same time.
This is proof positive that theindustry can change or that it
must change and.
(49:43):
You will not go bankrupt if youdo all these good things for
farmers and forests for peoplein planet.
This is like our moment, ourgeneration, we are being called
to step up.
It's a kind of do or dieinflection point.
But I truly believe we can, wecan do this.
I think we can.
Abigail (50:00):
Wow.
I think I know your answer, butI always ask if people are
optimistic about the planet withrespect to climate change, but
you're just.
Effusively optimistic, I thinkas a human, which is, wonderful.
Etelle (50:15):
I have little moments of despair on, but I try to hold on
to hope.
And there's a beautiful quotethat someone told me a while
ago.
They said hope is not a lotteryticket that you clutch on your
couch and like, you know, holdonto hope is a battering ram.
You just like knock this doorsdown with your hope.
And I think that is the kind ofhope that I try.
(50:38):
To hold onto and to embody.
So I don't necessarily feel ahuge amount of optimism about
the way that our planet isheading in terms of climate
chaos, but I feel this immenseoptimism that we can do better,
how we must do better.
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