Key Concepts Used in Climate Change Mitigation Strategies in the Coffee Sector

Key concepts such as “carbon footprint”, “carbon neutral”, “carbon neutrality”, “low carbon”, and “net-zero emissions” have gained prominence in the context of climate change, a current issue that has become an urgent global challenge caused by anthropogenic activities, including agriculture. This bibliometric review analyzed the use of these concepts in mitigation strategies for the coffee sector, since coffee production significantly contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, primarily due to land use change, fertilizer use, and processing methods, and therefore, sustainable approaches within the whole coffee value chain need to be implemented. A total of 105 documents from the Scopus database, covering publications from January 1988 to June 2023, were analyzed. Co-word analysis and co-occurrence mapping techniques, together with traditional bibliometric laws and historical evolution analysis using VOSviewer and Bibliometrix, were applied. The evolution of research over time revealed that the first concept introduced for documenting the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was “low carbon emissions” in 1909, but it was not until 2008 that the first document was published establishing a link between “low carbon emissions” and “coffee”. In 2015, two more concepts, “carbon neutral” and “carbon neutrality”, documented since 1968 and 1995, respectively, were used in articles related to coffee. So far, the most relevant concept in quantifying GHG emissions in the context of coffee production activities has been “carbon footprint”. When it comes to new documents linking key concepts to coffee, between 2015 and 2018, there was an average of six documents per year. Since 2019, the average has remained at 15, highlighting the need to continue documenting climate change mitigation strategies in the coffee sector. Practical application of our findings for coffee sustainability programs must include the adoption of on-farm sustainable agricultural practices that span the entire value chain. In conclusion, this study underscores the importance of concepts such as “carbon footprint” and “carbon neutrality” as key pillars in the development of effective climate change mitigation strategies in the coffee sector and the significance of their integration into future research and global policies with practical applications, with far-reaching implications for sustainable agriculture in the near future.