My personal journey with Peace Coffee began out of a simple love for coffee, but it quickly evolved into a deeper understanding of the industry’s complexities and the importance of ethical practices. Working here has opened my eyes to how unfairly coffee farmers can be treated, and that realization has profoundly changed my relationship with coffee.
This awareness drives my commitment to sustainability and fair trade, recognizing that our choices today will have lasting effects on all life on Earth.
Working at Peace Coffee has shown me how important it is to “vote with my dollar” and support organizations creating sustainable and equitable products. Yet, when I go to the store, I see numerous confusing, misleading product labels boasting they are “green” as a marketing tactic. Their labels don’t require their business to commit to sustainable practices.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself the next time you are at the grocery store trying to buy sustainable:
1. Is it “Fair Trade” and “Organic” certified?
When you are in the grocery store aisle, check to see if the product is “certified organic and fair trade.” To be organically certified, coffee farmers must use natural, chemical-free processes to grow and harvest coffee beans while adhering to defined standards and practices. Similarly, fair trade coffee farms must be democratically organized and abide by international guidelines to ensure the premiums earned through this certification are distributed fairly and used to benefit whatever the farmers have collectively voted on.
Peace Coffee was founded by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in 1996 with the primary goal of creating a proof-of-concept that it was possible to import and sell organic, fair-trade coffee in a way that benefited small-scale farmers rather than exploiting them—and it worked! Almost 30 years later, we’re still paying fair trade and organic premiums to our producer partners and ensuring they earn fair pay for their work. When browsing, watch for 100% organic and fair trade; rigorous standards are required to achieve that label.
2. Is it sustainable locally?
Local climate action is critical. This is especially true for our food! Sometimes, with products like coffee, it’s hard for a product to be 100% local. It’s important to buy local food if you can, and where that isn’t possible, it’s essential to see how an organization prioritizes sustainable practices at the local distribution level. For example, our local community means a lot to us, and we show that love in a few different ways. Our roastery is centrally located in the city, allowing us to deliver 50% of our coffee locally via bike all year— something we’ve been doing since day one! From composting to offering our burlap bags for gardening projects and so much more, we take our responsibility to the environment seriously, starting in our local community. If you are considering buying a product regularly, review their website to see how that business is taking action locally. Are they doing something concrete for the community? Do their values align with yours?
3. Is it B Corporation status?
What is a B Corporation Status? It’s a very high standard to achieve, and if you see this on a product, you know the food you are eating meets rigorous standards for both environmental and social good.
Peace Coffee is a certified B Corporation, meaning standards outlined by B Labs on social and environmental impact are met throughout our supply chain. The bar continues to be raised, so we’re incentivized to improve and continue pushing ourselves. Businesses that wish to achieve certification are scored on several key areas that reflect social and environmental impact. Things like transparency in operations, the wages and job security of the employees, involvement in charity work, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and even the quality of the product or service are all scored based on specific metrics and standards and to be certified your business must meet a minimum score threshold. Our current score is 118.7, 18.2 points more than our first score. The core of this process is transparency, so we welcome you to read a detailed breakdown of our score on the B Labs website.
These three questions will hopefully help you buy products that are truly sustainable and equitable. Coffee is a product that can be hard to fully know if the product you are buying is actually “green.” That’s why I love Peace Coffee. From our organic-only offerings since the beginning and our centrally located roastery making for convenient van and bike deliveries, to our reinvestments in our farming communities, meeting the rigorous standard set by B Lab, and so much more, we really mean it when we say we’re “In It For Good.” At Peace Coffee, we strive to lead by example in sustainable and ethical business practices. Join us on our journey and check out our website to learn more about our commitment to sustainability. Remember that protecting Earth is a team effort—we’re all in this together!
Amir Adan is Peace Coffee’s Social Media Specialist. As a Zoomer raised on the internet, he enjoys making fun content at work and for his personal social media pages. When he’s not at work, you can find him zipping around the Twin Cities on his e-bike, playing with his kitten, or cheering on our local pro-soccer team, Minnesota United FC.
The post Three questions to ask yourself buying groceries appeared first on Climate Generation.
The head of the United Nations called on Wednesday for governments to get together for an “honest dialogue” on how to transition away from fossil fuels.
Antonio Guterres told those gathered for the International Energy Agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris that “we must stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo”.
“Delay will only breed instability,” he said in a video message, “history is littered with the wreckage of failed transitions – broken economies, scarred communities and lost opportunities. We face a choice: design the transition together – or stumble into it through crisis and chaos.”
He called for “a dedicated global platform for honest dialogue on transitioning away from fossil fuels” that includes fossil fuel producers and consumers, developed and developing countries, civil society and public and private financial institutions.
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Guterres’ call contrasted sharply with the position of the United States. Ahead of the conference, US energy secretary Chris Wright threatened to pull Washington out of the IEA if the government-funded think tank continues to promote the energy transition.
At the event, Wright downplayed the importance of climate change, claiming that while it is a “really physical problem, it just isn’t even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem”. He called on the IEA to focus more on providing clean cooking solutions, which include fossil gas.
But, while US support wavers, the IEA’s head Fatih Birol celebrated that Brazil, India, Colombia and Vietnam have joined the Paris-based institution. He said this shows that the IEA’s strategy of engaging with the world outside developed countries was paying off. UK energy secretary Ed Milliband said it was a “vote of confidence” in the IEA.
Roadmap and conference
Guterres’ words come just over two years since governments agreed at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and three months after over 80 governments pushed at COP30 for a roadmap away from fossil fuels.
After the proposal failed to gain consensus at COP30 in the formal negotiations, Brazil’s COP30 presidency promised to deliver a global roadmap through an informal initiative before this year’s COP31 climate summit in Antalya.
Separately, Australia, which is leading the negotiations at COP31, vowed it would “continue to argue” for a transition away from coal, oil and gas in energy systems during its co-presidency.
Governments, experts, industry leaders and Indigenous representatives will be gathering this April in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a highly-awaited first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The government of Colombia, which is co-hosting the summit with the Netherlands, said it would seek to launch a permanent platform that would help a “coalition of the willing” accelerate the shift away from planet-heating coal, oil and gas beyond the UN climate process.
“Although there is growing consensus to gradually eliminate fossil fuels, there were still no specific spaces or meeting places dedicated to comprehending and addressing the pathways needed to overcome economic, fiscal and social dependence on fossil fuels, especially for producing countries,” Maria Fernanda Torres Penagos, director of climate change in Colombia’s Environment Ministry, said last month.
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It is unclear how that platform would cross over with Guterres’ suggestion. But Alex Rafalowicz, the director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (FFNPTI), which is supporting the conference, praised the UN chief’s “welcome leadership and vision”.
He said that the development of this platform is already happening through the FFNPTI, in which 18 countries are participating in discussions on a fossil fuel treaty.
“The Santa Marta conference is the first stop on this journey and all countries that are seriously committed to the 1.5C limit should be there”, he said, “we expect that out of Santa Marta we will have more proposals and commitments that can feed into the [Brazilian] COP Presidency roadmap”.
Coalitions like the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Powering Past Coal Alliance already offer platforms to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels. But major fossil fuel producers have not joined these alliances.
Guterres said that the platform should deliver a global transition plan which “aligns investment, energy security and climate goals – with concrete milestones and robust finance, particularly for developing countries”.
Guterres said in 2022 that, in order to be compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, wealthy countries should phase out coal by 2030 and other nations by 2040. The IEA said in 2021 that the world should reach net zero by 2050 to meet the 1.5C warming limit.
The post UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition
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REDFORD, Texas—Plans for a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas are raising alarms among residents and elected officials.
But the lawsuit, filed Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, could shield the petrochemical giant from harsher litigation from a local citizen group.
The Texas Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit Friday afternoon against Dow Chemical Co., North America’s largest chemical manufacturer, describing hundreds of water pollution violations from its industrial complex on the rural Gulf Coast in Seadrift.
Texas Alleges ‘Habitual Non-Compliance’ of Wastewater Rules at Dow Chemical Complex
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