Helping a coffee cooperative achieve carbon-neutral certification

Pachamama is an organic, producer-owned coffee cooperative based in California. The company is owned by more than 150,000 family farmers from a range of developing countries including Mexico, Nicaragua, and Ethiopia.  All of the profits from coffee sales are reinvested into programmes that offer environmental and social benefits to the local communities.

The ERM consultants’ pro-bono project identified the benefits the company could achieve from obtaining carbon-neutral certification. The team developed a scheme for monitoring and verifying the carbon emissions associated with the life-cycle of its shade grown coffee. The resulting footprint can now be used to obtain carbon-neutral certification and benchmark it against conventional fair-trade and organic coffee.

Photo accredited to Pachama Coffee Co-op