OUR RACE TO ZERO

We were so thrilled to become a certified B Corp last year. Since day one, we have put people before profit. We want to make the world a better place by caring for our employees, our customers, our community and every single person who plays a role in our supply chain. By always acting ethically, responsibly and sustainably, we hope to encourage other businesses to do the same. 

We believe this will lead to a fairer, more prosperous world where economies can scale without exploiting people or the planet. To become a B Corp, each and every one of our processes had to be in line with these principals - but now, we’re looking to go a step further. That’s where Race To Zero comes in.

So what is Race To Zero?

Race to Zero is the UN-backed global campaign rallying non-state actors – including companies, cities, regions, financial and educational institutions – to take rigorous and immediate action to halve global emissions by 2030 and deliver a healthier, fairer zero carbon world in time.

Each company has committed to the same overarching goal: reducing emissions across all scopes swiftly and fairly in line with the Paris Agreement. We’re doing so with transparent action plans and robust near-term targets which means we’ll hold each other and ourselves accountable and we're documenting here to be transparent about our journey!

This month, we've joined more than 900 fellow B Corp companies in making a public commitment to be Net Zero by 2030 as part of the Race to Zero campaign. But we hope to achieve this goal far more quickly than that. We're all in. 

At Dear Green,we’ve always strived to act and do business in a sustainable way. Not just because ethical buzzwords are in right now, but because it’s the right thing to do. That starts from the way we source our beans to how we treat our team who roast and pack them to the way we deal with any waste we produce. 

We’ll always keep working to move closer to our goals - and we’re thrilled to be a part of the Race To Zero campaign alongside so many other amazing B Corp companies. 

It's easy, right?! Reduce, reuse, recycle, offset! Well, here's what we've learned so far and how we plan to proceed.

• Scope 1 and 2 (direct and indirect) covers our company emissions - including our roasting facilities, vehicle usage and fuel.

• Scope 3 gets a bit more complicated, this category covers all emissions from both up and downstream activities.

• Upstream activities considers equipment used, raw materials purchased, how our team get to work, waste management and more.

• Downstream activities asks us to consider the impact of our coffee orders leaving the roastery - how our products are processed, how our orders are shipped, to end of life treatment of sold products - ie; is our packaging reusable or recyclable? 

Our recent B-Corp Certification means that we have already been audited for so many good practices - the next step in achieving our goal of Net Zero is to further document what we already measure, identify what we can improve on and action anything that we have missed!

• First and foremost it is our goal to reduce our carbon emissions as much as we can, getting as close to zero as possible without compromising on quality or efficiency. Only when we have exhausted all other options will carbon offsetting come into play.

• We acknowledge that offsetting is not best practice, nor is it a sustainable long term solution to the climate crisis but rather a necessary means of balancing out emissions while we continue to work towards our reduction targets.

• When investing in an offset project, we will be careful and selective in our choices - ensuring that our values are matched by that of the project. We will only consider supporting verified, ethical offsets which are proven to have successful results and have very low risk of any potential harmful consequences. We aim to keep our choice of offset as local as possible and wish to support one which benefits the ecosystem in ways additional to removing carbon - such as restoring wildlife habitats. 

• We want to emphasise that in achieving through use of offsets, we do not see this as our job being done. We will always strive to reduce our carbon footprint, improve our eco-friendliness and do more for the environment.

Follow our journey as we continue to post updates on our progress. Join us! Make the pledge! Join the race!

Want to find out more?

To find out more about our mission, why notget in touch? We’re always posting about our love of coffee and things that are important to us, like this, on our social media. Be sure to follow us onInstagram to stay in the loop. And if you really want all the best news, discounts and offers first - you’d bettersign up to our newsletter.