Buena Vista Roastery
Coffee and the MountainsArchive for Sustainability Committee
Our $7 Mandatory Carbon Offset
I learned more about a mandatory carbon offset that I had to pay to go to a Specialty Coffee Conference. Last May was the first conference I had attended, and was coincidentally the first SCAA Conference to require a carbon offset. I blogged in May about going to the event and need to follow up a little with comments on the carbon offset. I am now part of the SCAA Sustainability Committee, the very folk who encouraged the monetary contribution.
SCAA Sustainability Committee – Meeting Numero Uno
Next week I begin in earnest my tenure on the Specialty Coffee Association of America Sustainability Committee with a trip to a quarterly meeting in Atlanta. The meeting is a joint committee meeting, sort of a ‘mini SCAA conference’, as one person called it on a conference call the other day. I am interested to see how ‘sustainable’ the meeting is, especially as compared to the MN SCAA gathering last May. It was during that meeting that I obligatorily had to pay $7 to offset my carbon footprint, when the pomp and circumstance, signage, etc clearly paled the $7. Without really understanding the inner workings of the conference and expressing a little too much hubris, I found this was a curious notion to offset the barrage of signage and technological necessities of the conference. I look forward to learning more and to playing a part on the organizing side of things.
The Sustainability Committee has tasked itself to meet the United Nations Millenium Development Goals (MDG). This is a wonderful aim. People have already been working on these goals and perhaps there are ways to help effect policy to encourage more progress. This fits in with the Roastery’s work with BBI International and becoming a certified Green Business. We still would like to work on a carbon footprint assessment and subsequent ways to reduce that footprint.
Buena Vista Roastery 