From Community to Cup: Café Imports Becomes a TWP Corporate Partner

by Katie Murphy, Strategic Partnerships Manager 

Café Imports brings some of the highest quality green coffee to the global market. What makes them truly shine is not only their excellent product but the way they engage in business. To minimize their environmental impact, they have partnered with us to continue their carbon neutrality for the next two years. With the environment at the forefront of all their decisions, Café Imports believes it is just simply part of doing ethical business in the ever-changing coffee market. They believe that quality, education, and progress are the driving principles that make their services exemplary, and here at Trees, Water & People, we couldn’t agree more.

“This new effort in 2017, a charitable effort by the ownership of Café Imports, guarantees again that all of our coffee is carbon neutral by the time it arrives at our warehouse.“

    —Andrew Miller, Café Imports Founder

By becoming part of TWP’s Partners for a Sustainable Planet Program (PSP), Café Imports is doing more than just offsetting 3,378 tons of CO₂. Through reforestation and clean cookstove efforts in Honduras, Café Imports can ensure their carbon neutrality and further their existing philosophy which highlights the “tree to the cup” traceability of their coffee.

You can see for yourself how Café Imports examines their carbon footprint in their 2017 Environmental Progress Report. By computing not only their shipping and business travel, but including the day-to-day office and warehouse output, and even employee commuting, Café Imports can feel confident in their carbon footprint metrics and make changes to their business practices accordingly. In 2016, they were able to reduce their annual carbon output by 11% from the previous year.

Café Imports is taking carbon offsets further!

This unique partnership in the Honduran Highlands lends support to 220 local families in the twelve coffee producing communities we work with and also trains locals in agroforestry practices. By diversifying coffee farms with shade trees and integrated food crops, we can strengthen coffee crops and improve economic opportunities in these communities. Additionally, Café Imports has sponsored the construction and installation of 20 clean cookstoves and the training of two local Hondurans in stove design and construction. Implementing clean cookstoves helps families breathe cleaner air, reduce their reliance on and consumption of fuelwood, and improves their quality of life for years to come.

Our partnership connects Café Imports to the families that grow coffee, taking their existing philosophy of “tree to cup” to “community to cup.” TWP is proud to partner with a business who doesn’t just talk the talk about environmental responsibility; they walk the walk.

If you would like to learn more about our Corporate Partnership Program, click here! 

United Nations Foundation announces new Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Initiative

A woman cooks tortillas on her forest-saving, fuel-efficient Justa stove in El Salvador. TWP's stoves reduce fuel-wood consumption by 70% and indoor air pollution by 80%, greatly reducing deforestation and health problems.

The United Nations Foundation has recently launched the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a new initiative “supporting large-scale adoption of clean and safe household cooking solutions as a way to save lives, improve livelihoods, and reduce climate change emissions.”  The Alliance has set a goal of enabling an additional 100 million homes to acquire clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020.

To overcome the current market barriers hampering the widespread use of clean cookstoves in the developing world, the Alliance will partner with public and private stakeholders from around the world.  The goals of the Alliance include developing standards for cleaner stoves, increasing public and policymaker awareness of the health and environmental benefits of improved stove technologies, support of health and climate research, and reduction of trade barriers to help support market-based solutions, with the ultimate goal of developing a robust clean cookstoves industry.

The founding partners of the Alliance include the UN Foundation, the Shell Foundation, Morgan Stanley, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Germany Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, and UN-Energy.

Trees, Water & People and the Aprovecho Research Center have been developing forest-saving, fuel-efficient stove technology for over a decade.  To date, TWP and our local partners have built more than 42,000 fuel-efficient stoves in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti.  For more information about Trees, Water & People’s Fuel-Efficent Stove Program click here.