There are many organisations starting up that offer carbon offsetting or planting a tree for every sale. These are great but we have decided to go another way.....why?
Firstly, we hold environmental sustainability close to our hearts. Specialty coffee in itself embraces biodiversity and environmentally sensitive farming practices, which is exactly why we only sell specialty coffee.
We have looked into using third party arboreal organisations and researched our options and pricing structure to cover this. What we have found is that, whilst replanting is great, it's more important to maintain forests already established. Scientist Prof. Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at RGB Kew interviewed by the BBC said:
"Keeping forests in their original state is always preferable; undamaged old forests soak up carbon better and are more resilient to fire, storm and droughts. Whenever there's a choice, we stress that halting deforestation and protecting remaining forests must be a priority."
We feel that by continuing to pay the farmers fairly and thus supporting the local communities responsible for maintaining these established and valuable forests we are empowering the people who live in and safeguard these forests. Local people have most to gain from looking after the forests, they just need the right tools and to be paid right. Specialty coffee farmers grow their harvest in amongst natural flora and fauna already growing on the land. If they have to intensify the land to maximise output due to low coffee prices then that leaves these established forests vulnerable.
Whilst arboreal campaigns are great, we feel that the best part we, as a small company, can play is to use your money to help halt deforestation and we hope that's ok with you.
There's also a principle issue for us, paying a third party company to offset our carbon footprint and folding the cost into what the customer pays doesn't sit right with us. Instead we are making real and genuine carbon efficiencies and aiming for net zero in house and we will offset the output that we definitely cannot limit (such as roasting). This will reduce costs to the customer and help the environment. We have committed to net zero by 2040.
🔗https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55795816
