How we calculate this
For this box of 10 capsules, 63 g of green coffee grew. Conventional coffee growing uses about 0.83 g of synthetic pesticide per kg. Organic growing uses none at all.
0.063 kg x 0.83 = 0,052 g of synthetic pesticide never used.
Estimate: this is an estimate. See 'Source' for the figures it rests on and why we deliberately stay conservative.
Source
Why we count only synthetic substances. Organic growing also uses crop protection — sulphur, copper — and more of it by weight. The difference is in which substances. From research comparing every substance approved in Europe: 55% of those allowed only in conventional farming carry a hazard pictogram, versus 3% of organic ones. 16% warn of harm to the unborn child, suspected carcinogenicity or acutely lethal effects — for organic, 0%. Those are exactly the substances this product avoids.
Comparison of substances approved in Europe: conventional vs organic (peer-reviewed)
The amount of crop. 10 capsules hold 52 g of roasted coffee. Growing that took about 63 g of green coffee: beans lose roughly a fifth of their weight in roasting.
0.83 g of synthetic pesticide per kg of coffee. Conventional coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world. Estimate: we conservatively count 0.83 g of active substance per kg. For now this is an estimate, so we can already make the calculation tangible. As soon as we know the exact figure, we will adjust it.
Coffee Watch, "Poison in Your Coffee" (2023)
The organic label is not a promise but an inspection: European organic certification bans synthetic pesticides and is checked on site every year by an independent body.
Why this matters
A pesticide is designed to kill living things. It rarely acts only on the creature it was meant for. That is why Europe sets the drinking-water limit at 0.1 microgram per litre - half a sugar cube spread across fifty Olympic swimming pools.
But a limit does not yet say why it matters. This does: in areas of the Netherlands where the water held high concentrations of the pesticide imidacloprid, bird populations fell by 3.5% a year - measured in Nature. Not because birds drink it, but because their food disappears: the insects. Europe's own food safety authority EFSA called the same group of substances an unacceptable risk to bees.
Fewer insects means less pollination, fewer birds, and ultimately less of what ends up on our own plates. For this product, not one of those substances was used.
This comparison is only here to make the number tangible. It is an illustration, not hard science.
By choosing an IMPACT product you avoid all of this. That does society, today and tomorrow, an enormous service and makes a big positive difference to the future of us all.
