If I drop my consumption by $20k, I believe my extra investment of $20k will get consumed elsewhere in the economy.
If I spend that $20k on eco-friendly shit, I believe that the people I spent it on spend the majority of that on non-eco friendly shit (e.g. international travel holidays).
I want a better answer - one that isn't some simplistic catchphrase.
Another way might be to accept a smaller salary and work less. The salary economy requires a lot of consumption compared to just sitting at home doing nothing.
Independent of that, you can make specific decisions to avoid plastic-wrapped things. I’m visiting the US at the moment and I’ve seen plastic-wrapped corn, individually plastic-wrapped potatoes (!?!), eggs boiled shelled and in plastic, plastic cutlery individually wrapped in more plastic, straws given with every water at a restaurant (for adults?), plastic cups with plastic lids and plastic straws for every child, motel breakfasts with disposable plates and cutlery (they use a styrofoam cup for five seconds to get waffle batter and pour it in the cooker).
So people buy a coffee in a paper cup, or even worse a recyclable plastic cup. But the cup is less than 5% of the ecological impact of the coffee.
The growing of the coffee is where the impact is.
Generally we all get sidelined by recycling the packaging, as an anodyne to salve our consumptive guilt. Purest poisonous propaganda that we mostly willingly swallow.
As I asked: I want some answers for ways that I can help, backed by science and facts, not lies wrapped in plastic tinsel to misguide me.
Educating respectfully will accomplish much more than disdain and ridicule.
The demand for coffee is causing fragile native forest areas to be replanted in coffee.
You want an answer that lets you consume coffee and not affect the environment. That's not possible in this world.
And a lot of "eco-friendly" consumption is pure green-washing. I know people that provide eco friendly services, and I know what they spend their money on, and it is mostly just normal consumer consumption (e.g. international holidays which is clearly pure "waste"). Or eco-friendly people with 5 kids - who just can't see that children are a multiplier effect on current and future consumption.
I'm thinking supporting tree-planting NGOs might be a good start for example. This goes directly towards carbon-sequestration.