Announcing the 2021 SCA Sustainability Award Winners
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) are proud to announce the winners of the 2021 Sustainability Awards.
Each year the SCA recognizes three categories with Sustainability Awards. We’re thrilled to announce this year’s winners who will be recognized for their achievements at this year’s virtual Re:co Symposium May 12-13, 2021.
The awards for Project and Business Model recognize outstanding work in the field of sustainability in the coffee industry and the Sustainability Champion award recognizes the work done by an individual in pursuit of a sustainable specialty coffee sector throughout their career. This year the 2021 Sustainability Award is sponsored by Farmer Brothers.
Project Winner: Alto Mayo Landscape Peru REDD+ Project
Photo courtesy of Alto Mayo Landscape Peru REDD+ project
This project, which started in 2007, is a Peruvian landscape initiative that has boosted specialty coffee production and has drastically reduced coffee-driven deforestation (75% from baseline levels). The project is a collaborative effort benefiting coffee communities, implemented by Conservation International (CI) and local institutions including the Alto Mayo Protected Forest Park Service, the Association of Andean Ecosystems (ECOAN) and Asociación Civil Contigo Agrandando el Círculo (ACAC-ProAsocio). Conservation International’s support not only mitigates forest encroachment by building the technical capacity of local farmers and strengthening Park Service capacities to control deforestation, but it also improves the capacity of local service providers such as ECOAN and ACAC to deliver assistance in the region. The project has positively impacted both the quantity and quality of coffee produced in the landscape: export volumes have increased by 625% over the baseline, and in 2020, all lots exported received cupping scores of between 82 and 88 points.
To finance the ongoing engagement with local communities to improve the quality and quantity of coffee, CI has developed a REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation 'plus' conservation) project that generates money from the sale of carbon credits. In 2012, the team verified the first carbon credits from the project, one of the largest at the time and the first in a Natural Protected Area. Ever since, the Alto Mayo REDD+ project has generated over 6.2 million tons of emissions reductions — the equivalent of taking nearly 150,000 cars off the road each year. Today, this marginal population of farmers are conservation partners and have also significantly improved their livelihoods and economic opportunities for their families. The program now extends beyond the park boundaries and includes migrant farmers in other parts of the landscape as well as indigenous communities.
Sustainability Champion: Michael Sheridan
Michael Sheridan has spent the last 17 years working to make the coffee trade more inclusive and equitable through innovative coffee projects at origin, influential writing, advocacy, volunteer leadership, and an activist approach to coffee sourcing.
Advancing the dual causes of inclusion and equity is the thread that has woven together all Michael’s varied experiences in the coffee sector. From 2004-2013, that work was focused exclusively on creating opportunities for marginal smallholder coffee growers. Beginning in 2013, that focus expanded to also include farmworkers in the coffee sector. In both categories, Michael’s very best work for inclusion and equity has featured extensive cross-sector collaboration. It has involved a blend of project work, writing and advocacy, and supply chain activism.
In his current role leading Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade sourcing program, Michael is generating direct impact by making the company’s purchasing more inclusive. Most recently Michael has introduced a new focus on inclusive supply chains and new performance targets related to smallholder coffee sourcing.
Business Model: Pachamama Coffee Cooperative
Photo courtesy of Pachamama - Maritza Conlindres Gregorio Sanchez Nicaragua Prodecoop
Pachamama Coffee Cooperative is a roaster and retailer of specialty coffee collectively owned by thousands of smallholder farmers in Africa and Latin America. The federated co-op was founded in 2006 by five pioneering producer groups from Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and Ethiopia, who pooled their resources to create their own coffee company in California. By working together, across borders and with an US-based staff, Pachamama’s founding members were able to make this leap forward, forming the first global cooperative in North America that’s owned by farmers outside of the country.
Pachamama’s business creates greater financial incentive for smallholder farmers to continue to produce specialty coffee organically and under shade canopy. Pachamama Coffee Cooperative was designed to strengthen the supply chain at its weakest point by making organic coffee significantly more profitable for smallholders, helping them to stay on the farm and thrive. Their mission is to sell organic coffee in the most direct way possible and, in doing so, improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers and their families. Since producer groups are the only shareholders of Pachamama Coffee, it are designed to maximize profits and long-term value for our coffee farmers.
The selection process for the 2021 Sustainability Awards was led by a committee of staff and volunteers, and the winners were chosen by individual votes from the committee’s members.
Learn more about each category on our website.
SCA Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer Kim Elena Ionescu said, “This year more than ever, reading through Sustainability Awards applications filled me with excitement and optimism for the future, because while we face enormous challenges as an industry, the specialty coffee community is full of businesses, projects, and individuals committed to making change. The winners of the 2021 awards each approach sustainability differently, but their commitment to distributing decision-making power and sharing value across supply chains unites them and offers powerful examples for the rest of us.
Re:co Symposium, is a unique event designed for high-level discussion, leading innovation and strategy development for those passionate and influential in the world of specialty coffee. Through a mixture of speakers, interactive experiences and opportunities for conversation, Re:co looks at the specialty coffee market, the challenges we face and some of the solutions we have. Shining a light on opportunities for growth and development and will delve into how these can be approached. Re:co will take place virtually again in 2021, from May 12-13 in the Pacific Time Zone, with attendance now expanded to more countries globally. Learn more at https://www.recosymposium.org/.