One Small Step for Business, One Giant Leap for Humankind...one green coffee company's promise to the planet

Photo by Marcos Guerra, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

In a world that's more than ready for businesses to start reducing their carbon footprints and making the move toward being green, one office coffee company is doing just that. UK-based Office Coffee Company offers a wide variety of organic, fair-trade, Rainforest Alliance certified coffees, teas and hot chocolates, as well as eco-friendly cups, sustainably harvested wooden coffee stirrers, and environmentally friendly office coffee machines. The Office Coffee Company has won the Eden Project and Planet First's Planet Mark for Business certification, which means they are making a real and quantifiable effort to help the environment. They are committed to reducing their carbon emissions every year. Should you wish to become a client, they will even sit down with you and provide a unique carbon assessment that will explain the amount of rainforest trees you will save and carbon dioxide retained by drinking their Cool Earth coffee products. 

Photo courtesy of Cool Earth

Cool Earth is an environmental charity dedicated to the protection of the Amazon rainforest. The Office Coffee Company works in conjuction with Cool Earth to help protect the Earth's resources. Cool Earth's projects are all community-led and sustainable, and offer local people alternative ways of living, without logging. Cool Earth works with local partners in Peru, Brazil and Ecuador to protect biodiversity, carbon and communities by halting the destruction of the world's most endangered habitats. Cool Earth coffee is an eco-coffee launched in 2010 by designer and environmental campaigner Vivienne Westwood, in order to appeal to the nation's coffee drinkers, and harness their love of coffee to save endangered tropical forests. 

Photo: The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Tropical rainforests make up the most biodiverse habitat on the planet. That means most of the world's plant, animal and insect species are found there. Destruction of the Earth's rainforests continues at an alarming rate. Loggers, land-grabbers, soy farmers, and cattle ranchers make up the majority of those destroying the forest today. We have lost thousands of species due to this destruction - some we never even had a chance to identify. There are so many plant, animal, bacterial and other species in the tropics that are unidentified, and it is important to keep the Earth's forests intact so that these species can be discovered and studied for their properties (that could be life-saving in the case of plant-based medicines and cures for diseases) and the roles they play for the planet. Every species works together to create self-sustaining ecosystems. Disrupting just one species in an ecosystem could cause the whole thing to collapse. Cutting forests affects the forest's ability to absorb carbon. Rainforests act as carbon sinks for the planet, offsetting the atmospheric buildup of carbon from fossil fuels. This carbon absorption is highly dependent on tree diversity. With disappearance of the forest and carbon absorption hindered, our health and our lives are affected.  



The Office Coffee Company and other businesses who support rainforest conservation efforts are doing their

part to protect this valuable resources. Not only does Office Coffee Company support the efforts of Cool Earth, they also highlight their fair-trade and Rainforest Alliance certified products. Choosing fair-trade coffee ensures that your daily cup originated in decent working conditions, fair prices, local sustainability and fair terms of trade for coffee farmers. The Rainforest Alliance certification means that the fair-trade coffee is grown more sustainably than other coffee and helps protect the natural diversity of tropical habitat. And organic product ensures that the use of harmful and destructive chemicals that seep into the ground and river systems and poison habitats was not used on the coffee farms.

The Office Coffee Company is hoping to turn the nation's office coffee drinkers into rainforest rescuers, one delicious cup at a time. If you would like to be a part of these efforts, check out Office Coffee Company's website by clicking here. 

We are proud to be working with the Office Coffee Company which enables everyone during their daily routine at work to do something good and have a positive impact on the work we do protecting the rainforest and keeping carbon where it belongs.

MATTHEW OWEN
MANAGING DIRECTOR, COOL EARTH

You can support the efforts of rainforest conservation organizations and learn more by visiting the following websites:

The Rainforest Alliance

Cool Earth
Rainforest Action Network
The Nature Conservancy's Rainforest Campaign
Greenpeace's Save the Amazon Campaign

THIS BLOG WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF AND IN COLLABORATION WITH OFFICE COFFEE COMPANY, UK