Isra-Mart srl : Costa Rica carbon neutral coffee

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Isra-Mart srl news:

The world is becoming an increasingly environmentally – conscious place. The trends towards recycling, energy-saving and reducing the carbon footprints are regularly discussed in news forums as part of the current agenda. This concern has extended also to the coffee industry… and in Costa Rica in particular. There, local coffee growers have come up with a new idea to appeal to customers who want to do their bit for the planet and its resources.
What is the Costa Rican proposal? The answer lies in the introduction of an innovative scheme to market carbon-neutral coffee. A co-operative group of some 800 farmers, named CoopeDota, want to create this new product and hope at the same time to demand increased prices in line with other environmentally friendly farming processes. Published figures indicate that almost 50 per cent of the output from CoopeDota will bear the carbon-neutral seal this year, a quantity which amounts to over 15,000 bags of beans and 383 bags of tasted coffee.
How does the certification of this carbon-neutral process work? CoopeDota are not the first to claim to be carbon-neutral but they are different from other farmers, in that they seek to use a certification procedure to prove this. The British Standards Institution’s PAS 2060 is renowned as the way to calculate this neutrality. What does the PAS 2060 measure? The process looks at the point source emissions but also investigates the whole cycle to bring the coffee product to the customer.
This is a welcome move to create a more ethically sound production of one of our favourite drinks.