Portland-led effort blends coffee with global sustainability

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A Portland-led effort is brewing up a global coffee revolution.

First, some fast facts: The coffee industry is the largest employer in the world, supporting tens of millions of people, and coffee is the second largest traded commodity globally, behind oil. Yet most coffee is farmed in developing countries, where people live on less than $2 a day. For many, social equality, primary education and basic environmental services — such as clean water — are distant dreams.

Against that backdrop, a group of industry leaders in Portland are looking to start a coffee revolution.

Portland Roasting’s managing partner Mark Stell teamed up with the Specialty Coffee Association of America, the largest coffee trade association in the world, to come up with a Web-based tool that might just change the world. START, short for Sustainability Tracking & Reporting Tool, has the ability to track everything the coffee industry does, both good and bad.

START is still in its infancy; about 40 companies are beta-testing the tool for the next six months.

But an updated version of START is already in the works, one that will allow anyone to post community projects looking for support in coffee-growing areas of the world. The hope is that START will act as a sort of online matchmaker between industry dollars and developing communities.

"The idea is that the information gathered can show what we’re working on, doing well, and need to improve, " said Stell. "We think it will be pretty powerful information to showcase. It could be a great tool for a few customers who take advantage of it. Or it could be a really powerful industry tool."

Whether or not START catches on remains to be seen. Its best potential lies in broad adoption by coffee growers, sellers, roasters and retailers worldwide. But if the effort that built it is any indication of its support, the site’s future could be bright.

So far START has significant backing. Unveiled April 29 at SCAA’s annual exhibition and symposium in Houston, its development resulted from discussion about helping the SCAA track progress toward goals set by the United Nations.

Ratified by 189 heads of state in 2000, the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals are an eight-point action plan designed to combat global poverty. The SCAA signed a compact to support the goals in 2005. Recognizing their powerful role in the world, SCAA members deigned their best weapon against poverty was one they know best: coffee.

Since then, a small task force culled from the SCAA’s Sustainability Council conceived START, at its root a massive data tracking and reporting system. Built by Credit360, a United Kingdom-based company that specializes in Web-based sustainability and carbon management systems, START cost roughly $100,000, raised by Stell from coffee industry donors.

Outside its mission to track SCAA progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, START’s potential as a day-to-day business tool for coffee industry businesses is noteworthy. Adapted from existing Credit360 programs, START also provides day-to-day management tools — gauging year-over-year performance, tracking procurement and sales and dozens of other ways to measure business performance — otherwise unaffordable for small and mid-sized coffee companies. It also tracks yields by acre, tree species and price per pound, potentially helping growers become more productive. And for those who use it to log metrics like recycling, waste reduction, energy use and carbon emissions, START provides an audit-ready roadmap toward carbon neutrality.

Such technology isn't generally available to companies outside the Fortune 500 roster, Stell said. Users of similar Credit360 products paid tens of thousands of dollars for them and include corporate giants McDonalds and Chevron.

SCAA members will pay $150 a year to use the site. Non-members will have access for $300. Going forward, START will require $15,000 to operate annually, and another $30,000 to reach phase two. Organizers have raised $6,000 from beta-testing to date, and intend to debut START at every coffee conference in the world in the next 11 months.

"This will be a tool that allows companies to use the system every day for quality control," said Stell.

Its power to fight global poverty and address climate change will be realized only in proportion to how many businesses log on.

Proprietary information from individual businesses will be kept secret, but START has the ability to harvest key sustainability data system-wide and use it to populate mapping tools. Once paired with postings for community projects, the data will map development work alongside industry investments for a global view of the industry’s impacts.

If broadly used, START would ultimately make projects easier to share and track how much the coffee industry is contributing to the growth of developing nations and how it can do more. It will also help the coffee industry put a focus on climate change, arguably the most pressing challenge facing the business for the next 50 years.

"This is very powerful in the sense that it tracks both environmental and social projects," said Sarah Beaubien, product manager at Portland-based Coffee Bean International and a member of the SCAA Sustainability Council. Beaubien credits Stell, along with leaders from Fair Trade USA in Oakland, Calif., Atlas Coffee Importers and Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle and JavaVentures in Washington, D.C. with spearheading the project.

"The whole idea is this social innovation or environmental innovation where core companies are incorporating social and environmental projects into their core business values. It's not a thing that we do that's outside our business strategy. And I think this tool is going to help that happen, it's going to bridge the for-profit and the nonprofit world," she said.

Data will be reported to the United Nations annually, with a first report set for release at SCAA’s annual convention, in Portland in 2012. Until then, Stell and Beaubien plan to host once-monthly START parties locally with a goal of showcasing the Oregon coffee community as early adapters. Both Coffee Bean International and Portland Roasting contributed funding to the START project. Portland State University also provided six interns for programming and research assistance.

Lee van der Voo, lvdvoo*at*gmail.com, is a freelance writer for Sustainable Business Oregon.