OUR ETHICS
OUR ETHICS
The quality of the produce is broadly linked to the environment in which it is nurtured. Sustainable production through careful plant and soil management are both a central effort of Agronomic training provided by the East African School of Coffee. We work with our producers to ensure that there is continual improvement in their farming techniques to address their current challenges. Being kind to land requires farming to be profitable, so farmers need protection against both trade and environmental challenges. We focus on improving the structure of their ecology, agronomy and businesses in general.
We will have the first report published by the school of coffee after training is completed in the post-harvest period of 2023.
We aim to be both carbon negative and plastic free, however, alternatives through new technology have a way to go yet. Our packaging may be 100% recyclable but our aim is to limit the impact of the entire journey to get our coffee to you. We believe that both reduction and offset is important whether we are talking about carbon or plastic. We operate a simple “Double or Quit” philosophy.
Until we can “cut out” the small amount of plastic we have no other option but to use, we will remove at least double the weight of plastic that we do use from the Planet’s rivers system. We began this before we even roasted a single bean by partnering with GreenTweed Eco. Headed up by Tom Rawson, the 2022/3 Tweed and Spey River clean-ups have already removed 5 MT of plastics from these two iconic Scottish Rivers.
Our commitment to carbon is again centred around reduction and mitigation. By using our relationship with established commodity traders, we are efficient in our supply chain, thereby limiting our CO2 emissions. To mitigate the Carbon we do produce, we focus upon tree planting in East Africa. Again, we have taken the stance to remove double the CO2 that our activities generate. Using Coffee Industry carbon footprint metrics, we are able to calculate how many trees we need to plant. We calculate this in September so that we are in good time for the Heavy Rains (and planting season) in December.
Our Carbon calculations are down to the electricity used to boil your kettle – so for the sake of the environment and the quality of your water please try not to boil it twice! The land 1,000 KM either side of the equator is ideal for tree planting programs as the annual rate of growth and therefore annual carbon removal from the atmosphere is many times the normal rate that can be achieved once you are above or below the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.
