MS-ESM Student Creates Long-Term Community Sustainability Tool Through Class Project

This story is part of the Student Voices series, which provides a firsthand perspective of the student experience at Georgetown McDonough.

Emily Huang Javedan (MS-ESM‘24) is a recent alumna of Georgetown’s M.S. in Environment and Sustainability Management (MS-ESM) program. In April, Javedan received the Green Commons Award for her research study and website on the environmental sustainability of cafés in the Georgetown community. Here, she shares her journey to the MS-ESM program and her experience building her award-winning project, The True Price of a Mocha. 

Discovering My Passion for Sustainable Business 

Growing up between Fort Myers, Florida, and Eden, Utah, I was always surrounded by nature. From swimming in the Gulf of Mexico to hiking in the Wasatch mountains, my childhood was a constant interaction with the outdoors. The first time I realized my love for the Earth was as a youth camper at Sanibel Sea School, where every Monday counselors marched us to the beaches to pick up trash. Though I was at sea camp to surf and swim, the most valuable lesson I learned was one of habitat preservation: the principle that we should “leave no waste.” 

My early interest in nature blossomed into my studies in high school and undergraduate, where I explored different approaches to environmental sustainability through coursework, research, student organizations, and employment. I felt I found my true calling while interning as a global sustainable packaging summer associate at Mars, Inc. Working full-time in the world headquarters, I was empowered by the changes made possible by the intersection of environmental science and business. A week after my final presentation to senior leadership at Mars, I started my application to Georgetown’s MS-ESM program.

Formative Experiences in the MS-ESM Program 

I entered the MS-ESM program with a STEM background and left with not only a deeper understanding of sustainable business principles, but also a network of people who have taught me new perspectives in the classroom and in life. Our cohort model challenged us to work together through more than 10 group projects and allowed me to form connections with a diverse community that I am now blessed to call some of my best friends. 

One of the most formative experiences in the program was the course, Environment, Business, and Sustainability Management. Taught by our program co-directors, Kerrie Carfagno and Vishal Agrawal, the class deepened my understanding of sustainability challenges that businesses face across industries and inspired my current project, The True Price of a Mocha.

At the beginning of the course, we ranked our preferences for a commodity to study throughout the semester. I put coffee as my top choice, stemming from my personal love for the drink. When I first moved to D.C., I explored the city through coffee shops, trying iced mochas from more than 30 different cafés. I saw the project as an opportunity to study the sustainability of a product that I purchase in my daily life. 

My group decided to go beyond the scope of the assignment, expanding our research question to gain firsthand perspectives from the last step of the coffee supply chain: Georgetown coffee shops. We collectively interviewed five different locally-owned cafés, ranking their engagement in sustainability along with their suppliers. I was empowered by the conversations I had with store owners and coffee specialists, and shocked at how little I actually knew about a product I buy so often. Though our course culminated in December, I wanted to find a way to turn the knowledge I had gained through this project into a useful tool for the Georgetown community. 

The True Price of a Mocha and Winning the Green Commons Award 

In January, I reached out to Dr. Carfagno and together we brainstormed the project I am beyond excited to bring to life. The True Price of a Mocha is a website that hosts a map of coffee shops in Georgetown, providing both prices and sustainability data for each. 

To build this website, I partnered with a good friend from my undergraduate studies, Cameron Marcus, who has played a key role in developing our web interface. Together, we have worked on research and web development to make this idea a reality. Over several months, I visited every store on our site at least twice in-person, both conducting official interviews and posing as a regular customer. We recorded two types of environmental data: in-store practices and sourcing of coffee beans. Our website now exists to inform and empower Georgetown community members to purchase coffee better aligned with their values. Users have the ability to sort by prices and sustainability scores while also applying filters on certain data pieces. We believe that sustainability does not have to be one-size-fits-all. 

In April, The True Price of a Mocha project received the Green Commons Award, a grant from Georgetown’s Earth Commons Institute that funds projects promoting community discourse and action on environmental issues. Winning this award was a significant milestone and affirmative recognition of the hard work we have put into our project. Though the site is now live and usable, we are developing new features and will update scores to reflect improvements made by the cafés. 

Final Reflections 

Through this project, I am learning valuable lessons about data collection, community engagement, and the challenges of incorporating sustainability into everyday choices. Using knowledge I gained from professors and courses in the MS-ESM program, I have been able to develop scoring criteria and collect information for more than 25 metrics at 21 cafés. This project has allowed me to apply my educational background to a product I love and build something I am incredibly proud of. 

To future MS-ESM students, I offer this advice: immerse yourself in every opportunity the program offers, listen and learn from both your professors and your classmates, and get outside of the classroom. The interdisciplinary nature of the MS-ESM courses provide us with analytical tools we can apply to real-world problems. We can, and should, engage with the communities we live in to understand the reality of environmental sustainability challenges we learn about in class. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about where your food, your clothes, or your coffee comes from! 

Finally, pursue your passions unapologetically. I found a way to combine my love for iced mochas with my academic interests and create a tool that I hope will serve our community well. As I begin working full-time in the world of corporate sustainability, I look forward to improving this site while continuing to pursue projects that make a positive impact in environmental and sustainability management.