Pitch for Sustainable Coffee

Summary: My personal experience pitching a sustainable coffee program to corporations & major funding groups in today's climate.

For starters, pitching sustainability is a double-edged sword.

1. It’s needed badly—good for pitching.
2. It’s expensive, and too easily dismissed as idealistic … or silenced by greenwashing—bad for pitching.
   

That’s just the start. There are many more complexities to pitching sustainability projects and coffee is no exception. This is something I can speak to from experience.

The most important part of my role as an “eco-entrepreneur” is growing awareness for a sustainable coffee program. I help in whatever way I can to keep it alive. But don’t go imagining a cushy, romantic coffee dream job. The program is located in Honduras; known to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world with the highest femicide rate. Talk about un-romantic! Add the fact that, as the 4th largest coffee producer in Latin America, it has the most tropical forest to lose, and has indeed lost a great deal of it in the last 10 years.

Given it’s tenuous location, the Yoro Model, which represents the best chance for sustainable coffee production and forest restoration in Latin America, must contend with a number of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Using broad strokes here, these include:

In the producing country…

1. Poverty & inequality
2. Government corruption
   

In the consuming countries…

1. Consolidated, speculative marketplace
2. Small fish in a big ocean
3. Lax government regulation
4. Consumer ignorance of the issues
   

I’m not just being dramatic in choosing the words “keep it alive” when referring to the program. The model has struggled with minimal financing for years now. A plan for achieving sustainable coffee, just like any other major development project, requires a significant cash injection to get the ball rolling. This particular program, which has 25 years of development throughout Latin America by now, includes solar-powered coffee dryers supplied by carbon neutral coffee farms—No small undertaking and there is no other program that compares!

The partners originally needed $15M (this was years ago now), but have only so far managed to get a total of around $5M. A key obstacle being that very few investors are willing to risk their money in such a hostile location. There was some renewed hope for it’s take-off a few years ago, as the partners celebrated news that their $7.5M solar-powered facility received approval funding to proceed; However, the release of that funding has been held back the recently exposed, corrupt Honduran government and the project has still yet to break ground.

You can boil it down to saying that the program has been on life-support since day one. The good news is that hard work, coffee sales, and limited development grants have kept it driving forward and allow the partners to continue conducting the research and development required to prove the Yoro Model.

My role can be broadly defined as “communications” and I spend part of my days writing letters of outreach for support funding. No spamming of course; These are tailored letters and the recipients carefully chosen. But the general pitch is this:

Imagine coffee producers (growers) and consumers (home coffee-drinkers and businesses, like roasters and importers) connecting to solve the two most critical root issues in coffee:

1. Stopping the deforestation, and
2. Paying growers a stable, and fair price

This is what this program is doing on a small scale! Making it a model for restoring forests and improving biodiversity, that also produces a valuable supply of sustainable coffee.

I know what you’re thinking, She’s one of those idealists. Yet, I type this while listening to the newly released IPCC report, hearing the world’s top scientific leaders making public pleas that exactly match the objectives of this sustainable coffee program, and I’m feeling justified.

The UN Secretary General addresses the world: “The goal and the pact is to limit the global temperature rise by 1.5 degrees, but according to current commitments emissions will increase to almost 14% over the next decade … Nearly 1/2 of humanity is living in danger zones now … This leadership is criminal … Renewables are needed for energy security and green jobs … Scaling up investments will be essential for survival …”.

Shifting away from the antiquated, legacy coffee trade won’t be easy or favorable for all parties. There are always those benefiting from current circumstances to consider. But shifting towards restorative coffee might be worth some serious consideration as an effective climate mitigation tool. Especially when it has the potential to restore forests and create green jobs en masse at such critical time.

With so much potential for good, the barriers are frustrating and de-motivating to say the least! It starts to feel like the whole world is short-sighted and only about money. Sustainability requires depth (as opposed to greenwashing). And yet at this point it also requires deep pockets for front money.

But if we can fund rocket science, what’s to stop us from funding forest restoration?

The outreach I do comes with a heavy dose of automated responses, or silence. Still, I’ve committed to spending time each week bound to this keyboard banging out pitches, and have learned that disappointment simply comes with the territory.

Break time … Mmmm, coffee. My sacred jungle ritual. I read a book, a post, a tweet. Remind myself I’m not alone. We are many of us. People who are active in pushing creative solutions and seeking deeper connections. People who long for change, even if all they can contribute right now is posting on their social media feeds about it, or helping inform another person. These things do help.

A lot of us drink coffee and never dream of giving it up. I identify as a coffee-lover that doesn’t want to feel guilty about its footprint. Pitching sustainable coffee is my contribution. It’s one of many means of acting. And regardless of how impossible it may feel sometimes, it’s needed.