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My grandmother was a saver.

When I was growing up, my grandmother, like many of her era, was well-known for saving things. She grew up during the Depression and World War II, and those times left a pretty strong impression on her. Having gone through some pretty lean times, small possessions became more valuable, and Grandma didn’t like to throw anything away, even when she could afford to. She saved greeting cards, paper clips, rubber bands, canisters, cardboard boxes, jars—lots of small items that in today’s throwaway culture we might not think about saving. Some of the stuff she ended up using. The rest of it—well, that’s what the cellar was for.

I’m sure that the Recession has left a considerable impression on many in our country, though probably not quite to the same degree (yet). We still seem to throw away a lot of stuff,  though it does appear that we are holding on longer to our more expensive possessions (e.g., cars).

If one result of the economic turmoil is that we end up buying fewer things and appreciating them more, that would be a good thing. Industry might not agree, but it already produces more stuff than we can buy and keeps trying to sell more to us—on credit.

All that to say, today when I was walking downtown, I saw this and it reminded me of my grandmother. Someone had the idea to make a dress out of used coffee filters. It is an example of saving that even Grandma never would have considered.

The preferred gown for the CoffeeFest Saturday night afterparty

Whether you are a saver or not, I think you can appreciate the effort it took to make the dress. By my estimation, there are about 500 coffee filters in the dress. It was sewn to raise awareness (it worked!) about what happens to all of the coffee filters that are used in this town every day. You can read the description for yourself (click to enlarge).

I’m not suggesting that you start saving your coffee filters to turn them into retro chic clothes (the compost idea sounds like a better use to me—easier, at least), but it might be a good idea to think about what you’re buying beforehand so you don’t just end up throwing a bunch of stuff away.

Or saving it, if you’re like my grandmother. 

Sitting down with Mr. Sustainability – An interview with Mark Stell, Portland Roasting Coffee

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In an era when it is trendy to be “green,” there are a lot of companies that like to promote their environmental credentials. If you walk down the aisles at the supermarket, you can see hundreds of products lining the shelf that are “natural,” “green,” or “earth-friendly.” Companies know that they are expected to care about the environment. They create CSR (corporate social responsibility) departments and cobble together a  few initiatives to make themselves appear more earth-friendly. Sometimes the claims are exaggerated or misleading (can you tell me exactly what “natural” means?), and sometimes the initiatives are meant to overshadow other, less environmentally friendly parts of the company (BP becoming “Beyond Petroleum,” for example). In these cases, there is nothing like a good “greenwashing” to clean up the company’s image.

Not all companies are just paying lip service to being green, however, and it is encouraging when you come across a company that strives to live up to its environmental claims. Portland Roasting Coffee is a company that backs up its green talk with actions.

I recently sat down with Mark Stell, Portland Roasting’s co-founder and managing partner, to talk coffee. Stell told me the story of how he got into the coffee business and also about the some of the projects that Portland Roasting is working on.

The first time I heard Stell speak was when he visited our sustainability class for the MIM program at Portland State University (PSU). One of the topics of that class was the triple bottom line,  where companies strive to make a profit while including social and environmental criteria in their accounting of success.

Stell told us how his company was using the triple bottom to drive company decisions. He described some of Portland Roasting’s development projects such as building wells and other water projects in the communities where the company sources its coffees. He admitted that sometimes his company should focus more on the economics, but was firm in his belief that environmental and social consequences were just as important.

Inspired to Action

We met in a conference room at Portland Roasting’s Inner Southeast Portland headquarters. Stell began by telling me about his introduction into the coffee industry.

Originally from Wisconsin, he was studying marketing at PSU when he had a life-changing experience at the United Nation’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

“I was in Rio in ’92 as a student delegate for Portland State,” he said. “While we were there, all of these speakers kept coming up to the stage and telling us how their lives were being affected by global warming. It was a powerful moment. You never want to forget how you feel at times like those.”

Attending the summit was a watershed moment in Stell’s life, and he decided to act based on his new awareness of problems including poverty and global warming. When he got back to Portland, Stell looked for a job with a local coffee roaster. He chose to work in coffee for a very specific reason.

“Coffee is an industry where you can really make a difference. It is unique in that it is so far-reaching. There are millions of people involved in its production, and it also covers issues like poverty and equity between developed and developing countries.”

At the time, he did not even like coffee, though his distaste for the beverage did not last long.

“After six months I was completely hooked. I loved it,” he said.

After a short stint at the local roaster, Stell decided it was time to move on. He and his business partner, Todd Plummer, started Abruzzi Caffè, a roastery/café in Northwest Portland. After a couple years, they sold the business and started Portland Roasting.

Since its founding in 1996, Portland Roasting has grown by leaps and bounds. Today, the company roasts about 900,000 pounds of coffee each year. Much of its coffee is sold in cafés, supermarkets, hotels and universities. Portland Roasting also sells a substantial amount in Japan.

Portland Roasting recently announced that it would be opening its own retail cafés in the Oregon Convention Center, just a few blocks away from PRC headquarters. The company will have two cafés in the building, giving the company an opportunity to showcase its products and mission. The first one is set to open in August.

Leading in Sustainability

One of Portland Roasting’s accomplishments that Stell is most proud of is receiving the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) Sustainability Award in 2005 for the company’s Farm-Friendly Direct Program. In the program, Portland Roasting pays above-market prices for the coffee and the premiums are used for community projects such as building schools or water purification facilities in the communities where coffee is grown.

In addition to investing in communities abroad, Portland Roasting has also undertaken several sustainability initiatives closer to home. These include implementing recycling programs, contracting with B-Line (a bicycle delivery service) to deliver its coffees, using biodiesel-powered vehicles, purchasing wind-generated electricity and contracting with Trees for the Future to plant trees to offset the company’s carbon dioxide emissions.

One of the biggest initiatives that employees undertake each year is putting together annual Walk for Water. The three-year-old event is overseen by Portland Global Initiatives, a non-profit that Stell founded to raise money for water-related projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portland Roasting works in conjunction with a capstone class at PSU to organize and promote the event, which in 2011 raised more than $30,000.

Coffee Economics

In addition to the sustainability issues, Stell also keeps a close eye on Portland Roasting’s financial position. We talked about how the recent run-up in prices has affected the company.

“It’s been tough,” he told me. “We’ve had to raise our prices three times in the last year. I know it’s been hard on our customers.”

PRC’s long-standing relationships with its growers has helped the company weather the recent price increases.

“I tell [our customers] that it could be even higher if we didn’t have these relationships. Some of our growers have been helping us out, charging lower prices than they could have, because we have been good to them over the years. Most of our growers stayed with us. There was one group who decided they had to go for the money. You hope for loyalty in return for working with someone for a while, but it doesn’t always work out. It’s sad to see that happen, but I understand why it did.”

Stell sees quite a bit of uncertainty in the future of coffee prices.

“There’s going to be a lot more competition for high-quality beans. I see that as being a major challenge. As China comes into the market, it could become harder and harder to get the best beans, so there might be more of a price differentiation between coffees, much like there is between wines. I hope that coffee still remains a beverage that everyone can afford. We’ll see what happens.”

START-ing a New Movement

In addition to his duties at Portland Roasting, Stell also sits on the SCAA’s sustainability council. He helped spearhead the effort to create the recently-released START (Sustainability Tracking and Reporting Tool) application, an online program that helps companies monitor their environmental impact.

The START project, which has taken six years to complete, was undertaken with the United Nations’ Millennium Development goals in mind. The SCAA still needs to raise a few thousand dollars to finish paying for the program’s development, but once enough companies sign up, the program will be self-sustaining.

There are several goals for START. One is to make it affordable for companies to monitor their social and environmental impacts so that they can improve them. Normally, software to do this would cost a company tens of thousands of dollars, but START is available for $150/year to participants in the program.

Another goal is to help the entire coffee industry understand its overall impact. The data that the program collects will be compiled, allowing the SCAA to release it to the public (without releasing individual companies’ data). The data will help companies see where they are in relation to industry benchmarks.

One of START’s key benefits is that it provides a forum for sharing information about development projects. The plan is for START to help companies interested in development projects to collaborate with each other. For example, if a project is too large for a single roaster to undertake, the project can be posted to START.

In addition, Stell said, START helps coffee-growing communities share their needs.

“If I’m in a community that needs help building a school, I can post it on the site so that companies that are looking for projects can work together. It’s creating a community for development.”

START also includes a certification system for companies participating in the program. To receive the certification, companies must add a certain amount of data to the START system, demonstrating that they are closely monitoring their carbon footprint and social impact. The SCAA hopes that consumers will gravitate towards companies with this certification, much like they do with Fair Trade.

More Than Hot Air

As a company, it is much easier to talk about being green than it is to actually do it. Many companies try to make you believe that they are working to help the environment, putting in as little effort as they can to build their green image. Portland Roasting Coffee, on the other hand, led by its passionate founder Mark Stell, is leading the coffee industry toward a more sustainable future, something that is not just a bunch of “greenwash.”

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Spring weather - invariably variable

One of the challenges of farming in the spring is definitely the weather. As I mentioned in the last post, this spring has been cold and wet, so everyone is behind with spring work.

A good word to describe the spring weather in Eastern Washington would be erratic, but that might be an understatement. As I was driving around on the tractor yesterday, the weather kept changing from sunny to cloudy to rainy to snowy. Yes, snowy.

The following set of photos give you an idea of how quickly the spring weather changes here. In the first, taken at 7am, you can see lots of blue skies and sunshine. It was cold and windy too—about 38 degrees (brrr). The turbines in the background were making plenty of electricity. From that time onward, new waves of weather repeatedly crashed down upon us.

Starting out nice

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Walking for Water in the Rain

Despite the cold, rainy and windy weather, there was a good turnout for the Walk for Water in downtown Portland yesterday. The official figures are not in yet, but from my estimation, approximately 800 people gathered at the covered plaza at the World Trade Center to take part. We were there to raise money to build a well in a village in either Kenya or Malawi.

Walkers enjoyed free coffee from Portland Roasting and some snacks provided by local businesses. Five members of Boka Marimba, a marimba and percussion group, enthusiastically entertained the crowd with their energetic music.

Boka Marimba

Several non-profit groups also set up informational booths to let people know what they were up to and to sign up new members. Upon seeing the booth for PHLUSH, an organization that campaigns for the construction of more public toilets in Portland, Bill Mikesell, who was photographing the event, quipped that “in Portland, even the public toilets have an advocacy group.”

Of course they do. . . is that weird?

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Sustainable Harvest - Changing the way coffee business gets done

Whenever you buy something, it is easy to forget that your transaction goes beyond the store where you purchased it. Whether you think about it or not, what you choose to buy affects other peoples’ lives, and these purchase decisions have economic, social and environmental consequences.

The coffee we buy, for example, is at the end of a long and complicated supply chain that begins in some very remote places. There are over 25 million coffee growers in the world, many of whom have very small plots of coffee trees. Trying to make a living off a small coffee farm is very difficult, especially if the companies purchasing the coffee are solely motivated by profits.

To learn more about how the system works, I visited Sustainable Harvest, a green coffee importer based in Portland. Dane Loraas, a Quality Control Manager for the company and Katie Gilmer, a Relationship Coffee Manager, were my hosts when I visited the company at its Pearl District headquarters. They spent an hour with me explaining the company’s business model and answering my questions.

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Walking for Water with Portland Roasting

When it comes down to it, there are only two ingredients that go into great coffee, assuming you drink it straight. The first is great coffee and the other is great water. Here in the Pacific Northwest, where we have great coffee, we often take for granted that we also have an abundance of high-quality clean water. Portland’s water is so good that the City of Portland is negotiating with the federal government over a requirement to install very expensive water treatment measures that city officials do not believe is necessary.

Other places are not so fortunate, especially many developing countries. One of the unfortunate truths about coffee production is that the people in many regions that produce great coffee beans do not have easy access to safe, clean drinking water. Not having access to water is a major drag on the economic development of  these places. In addition to increasing the rate of water-borne illnesses, the lack of clean water makes it harder for young people to go to school, because it is often the young family members who have to fetch water. They cannot go to class when they are hauling water for their families, and supporting the family’s survival is always going to take precedence over education. This is a long-term problem for these regions that needs to be solved.

Providing clean drinking water is a  great start to improving economic development in poorer regions, and Portland Roasting Coffee (PRC) is working with Portland Global Initiatives to do this. Portland Roasting’s mission is to use the commerce of coffee to improve living conditions in developing countries, and one of the ways they do this is by partnering with Portland Global Initiatives to host the Walk for Water, a 3.5-mile walk along the Willamette River in downtown Portland.

The Walk for Water coincides with the United Nations' World Water Day

This year’s event takes place on Sunday, March 27 at 1 p.m. Participants will walk the course, carrying water and stopping at stations along the way to learn more about water issues. The money from registration fees and sponsorships will go to USAID, a federal international economic development agency that partners with Water for All to build wells in developing countries. The purpose of the walk is to raise enough money (approximately $14,000) to build a well in Kenya or Malawi. While building one well is not going to solve the all of a country’s development challenges, it will make a huge difference in the lives of the people in the village.

The video below, produced to promote last year’s walk, explains the walk and shows you how the previous year’s funds were put to work.

If you are interested in walking, the cost is $20 per individual or $50 for families up to 6 people. I plan to walk, and I encourage you to do the same. If you do not feel like walking, you can also donate. Click the Walk for Water link at the top of the left sidebar and you will be taken to the sign-up page. Thanks!

Coffee in Pictures: Tree to Cup

As someone who grew up in agriculture, I realize how little we know about some of the foods and drinks we consume. For me, it's always fun to find out where foods come from and how they are produced, so I thought I'd share with you some pictures that give you a better idea of how coffee travels from tree to cup.

Coffee trees growing in Panama. Photo by Gilian on Flickr.

The coffee tree produces a delicate white flower that has a jasmine or orange-like smell.

Coffee flowers in Indonesia. Photo by Deepak Bhatia on Flickr.

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