Description:
Counter Culture Coffee is a Durham-based craft coffee roasting organization dedicated to real social, environmental, and fiscal sustainability. Our coffees come from transparent, long-term relationships with passionate coffee farmers and together we use coffee to benefit the natural environment and all participants in our supply chains.

Executive Summary:

Founded in Durham in 1995, Counter Culture Coffee (CCC) has built an international reputation for coffee quality based on commitments to caring for the communities and natural environments that we touch - from countries of origin where coffee trees grow in the shade of native, diverse forest, to communities of coffee lovers in North Carolina that drink our coffee every day. The three core principles of Counter Culture Coffee are: quality, sustainability, and education. Over our fourteen-year history, we have become leaders in all three of these areas because we recognize their interdependency. For example, CCC's ability to consistently source the best coffees from around the world relies on the strength of our long-term relationships with coffee growers and the sustainable prices we are able to pay for their coffee. It's not easy to convince consumers that they are paying too little for a product, especially not a product like coffee that has historically been seen as a cheap and available commodity, but we know that it is our responsibility to do just that. For that reason, we committed ourselves to 100% transparency in all things. In order for coffee drinkers to understand the environmental benefits of organic certification, for example, CCC must educate our customers and consumers about different growing methods and agricultural processes. We believe that quality and sustainability are inseparable in coffee. We have incorporated social, environmental, and fiscal sustainability into every department and every project, and nowhere is that more evident than in coffees like Finca Mauritania, a certified-organic coffee that results from a five-year partnership with grower Aida Batlle in El Salvador; or Valle del Santuario, purchased from a cooperative of certified organic small-scale farmers in northern Peru with a Transparency Contract that prominently displays the payments and signatures of all parties in the supply chain. These coffees, environments, and relationships demonstrate that we all benefit from great-tasting coffee, grown by responsible farmers whom we recognize personally, in a healthy natural environment. Here at home, our organization's Sustainability Manager and our interdepartmental Sustainability Committee implement sustainable initiatives in every area of our organization and inculcate the values of social, environmental, and fiscal sustainability into every aspect of our business. Just this past August, our committee set five-year sustainability goals for CCC under the title CUPS: Coffee as an Unrelenting Pursuit of Sustainability. CUPS follows our three-part definition of sustainability and commits us, by 2015, to achieving the following: Social: 100% Satisfaction among customers, employees and producers, Environmental: Carbon neutrality, and Fiscal: Debt reduction to 5% of sales and profitability every quarter Moving forward, and succeeding, will depend on the engagement and dedication of every person in our company. As we make progress toward these goals, and in all of our sustainability efforts, we will continue to track our progress on our Sustainability Scorecard.

What specific results have been achieved?

- Since 2006, Counter Culture Coffee has compiled and publicly reported data on social, environmental, and fiscal sustainability projects from all areas of our business on our Sustainability Scorecard. As an organization, we are committed to working with farmers to figure out their costs to produce coffee and then using those numbers to help us pay truly sustainable prices for our purchases, but unfortunately, most small-scale coffee growers do not keep records for their businesses and have no idea where to begin a project like this. Since we have begun working with growers to gather this data, three of our partner cooperatives - representing more than 2,000 farmers - have been able to find numbers that we have then used to set establish prices that more accurately reflect the conditions and needs of those growers. - At our headquarters, we have reduced the footprint of our facilities by diverting not only our recyclable waste from the landfill but also by finding outlets in our community, including local farmers, gardeners, and craftspeople for the coffee grounds, coffee chaff, and burlap bags that most roasting companies throw away. - Also at our headquarters, we provide separate compost receptacles to help divert food waste from the landfill and to augment employees' home composting, gardening, and soil building efforts. - As part of our commitment to educating and providing opportunities for our employees, we have successfully incorporated 100% of our staff into the vision and practices of sustainability at CCC through an orientation session.

In what ways are the efforts of this organization/individual unique and innovative?

- In May of 2008, CCC launched Counter Culture Direct Trade Certification, a third-party certification for our coffee-purchasing practices with standards that exceed any existing third-party coffee certification in areas of: prices paid for green coffee, personal communication between CCC and growers, quality of coffee, and price transparency throughout the supply chain. - Together with one of our grower partners in El Salvador and a retailer customer in Washington, D.C., CCC is working to assess the seed-to-cup carbon footprint of this grower's coffee and to offset the climate impact of that coffee through a reforestation project on and around the farm. - We have built a singular customer-service model based on regional training centers in east coast metropolitan areas where we give local education and training to our customers and coffee drinkers in each of these markets. At our centers, customers and coffee enthusiasts may take classes from our staff on topics ranging from the history of coffee to the chemistry of milk, taste coffee with us in public tasting sessions, and improve their technique on our top-notch cafe equipment. - In April of 2009, CCC designed a mini-training center entirely out of recycled, recyclable, and renewable materials for our industry's annual trade show, and were likewise the only participant at the show to commit to a "zero waste" booth by composting our coffee grounds and eschewing standard paper sampling cups.

How has the broader community been impacted?

Our business is, by nature, global, and we strive to benefit every community involved in our amazing coffee, from the communities of our grower partners to the communities of coffee lovers here in North Carolina who drink our coffee every day. Delivering real value to coffee farmers means paying high prices for the coffee we purchase, of course, but we take that meaning of the price paid to a new level by guaranteeing 100% transparency in our supply chain. We work together with importers, exporters and cooperatives - all of us willingly sharing financial information with one another - to trace payment for coffee all the way to individual farmers within cooperatives. In addition to guaranteeing higher prices to growers, we also directly contribute to our partners' quality-of-life projects: $15,000 over the past three years in education, reforestation, and income diversification projects. We demonstrate our support for our employees here in Durham as well as our Regional Training Centers by offering competitive benefits, profit sharing, and educational opportunities. Since 2006, we have contributed more than $50,000 to charitable organizations in North Carolina that work in areas from wilderness preservation to disease recovery to sustainable agriculture, and we have also been long-time sponsors of WUNC radio, Playmakers Repertory Company, Durham Symphony, and the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.