In a continuing effort to make every aspect of our business sustainable, we have partnered with Carbonfund.org to offset 100% of the global warming emissions associated with our coffee. We were the first coffee roaster in the nation to complete the rigorous third-party certification process necessary to obtain the Carbon-Free Certified product label and we have maintained it since 2008.
To get a product certified Carbon-Free, a company must submit the item for a detailed Life Cycle Analysis, a third-party process that formally scrutinizes the carbon emissions associated with every step in production. The resulting analysis accounts for all carbon dioxide emissions starting with a coffee plant and ending with an empty bag of coffee.
This comprehensive "crop to cup" analysis includes the following steps:
- Organic cultivation of coffee plant
- Non-mechanized harvest of coffee cherries
- Pulping and washing of cherries (to extract beans)
- Sun drying of coffee beans
- Transport of beans to dry mill for hulling
- Burlap bags used to contain finished green coffee
- Transport to port city in country of origin
- Ocean transport from origin to US west coast ports
- Warehousing in US port cities
- Transport to Grounds for Change roastery
- All energy used in roasting processes
- All energy used in operations and business travel
- Coffee packaging materials, labels and shipping boxes
- Transport of finished coffee to customer
- All energy used to heat customer's brewing water
- Customer's disposal of spent coffee grounds
We are committed to providing our customers with the highest quality coffee available. To us, that means organic, fair trade and now Carbon-Free Certified - caring for ecosystems, workers and the climate.
Carbonfund.org, the nation's leading non-profit carbon offset provider, is the only organization in North America to provide full Carbon-Free certification. We utilize Carbonfund.org's reforestation program to offset the complete carbon dioxide footprint of all roasted coffee.
In addition to our Carbon-Free product certification, we continue to purchase 100% renewable electricity that is generated by wind, solar and biomass. We firmly believe that using sustainable energy whenever possible and offsetting all non-renewable energy used in business operations is critical to long-term success.
