BEST Award winner, 2011 – BEST Practices for Sustainability: Medium Organization
Through our business practices we aspire to unify stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers, peers, and shareholders) to affect positive social change and foster creativity. We believe our biggest impact will come from our efforts to improve coffee quality globally and to develop innovative ways to reduce coffee’s collective carbon footprint. The results from these efforts will improve the social equity of millions of coffee growers, increase the attention paid to critical elements of high-quality coffee (such as green canopy, natural fertilizer, water quality, and organic composting), and deliver a massive reduction in landfill waste and GHG emissions per pound roasted.
- Year-over-year reduction of airline travel is 25%
- Reduced Natural Gas use by 60% since 2008
- Year-over-year reduction in electricity of 8%. Use renewable energy, implemented standard operating procedures that shorten the amount of time lights are left on, activating power management settings on computers, and reducing machine idle time
- Overall water usage has decreased by 35% since last year
- Low-water landscaping with a water reclamation system and bio-swales, only use indigenous plants and trees
- Recycle 81% of waste through eliminating paper cups for internal use (saving an estimated 25,000 cups per year) and bring-your-own-mug promotions for customers. Working towards becoming a paperless company
- Compost 100% of organic waste
- Add-back system blends excess coffee back into a like-batch, rather than discarding
- Donate nearly 100% of burlap bags – totally 165,000 lbs – are donated to farmers, schools, and reclamation projects as well as to a large firewood manufacturer in Oregon
- Direct trade portfolio increased over the past year from one country to four
- Roastery is LEED® Silver-certified manufacturing facility—one of the only such facilities in the coffee industry. Repurposed existing building (preserved over 60% of structure)
- Recycled construction waste from build out (approximately 97%)
- Strong use of regionally sourced building materials (nearly 70% by value)
- Used sustainably grown and harvested wood (over 50%)
- Consult customers on different methods of waste reduction, from composting grounds to setting up recycling systems that fit with the operational flow of the café to better beverage execution that does not compromise quality
- Working with suppliers to change the way that they ship product to us by consolidating orders and using as little packaging material as necessary
