What Does Ethical Coffee Look Like - Common Good Coffee
Learn about Common Good Coffee’s commitment to a truly good product. What is Ethical Coffee? We believe it must be good for farming communities, environmentally sustainable, and good for your local community. Learn more about what we mean when we say “good”.
Coffee for the Common Good
The mission of Common Good Coffee is simple: To make good coffee available to as many people as possible and to make each cup of coffee good for Everyone from the farmers to your cup. This is coffee for the common good. Our definition of good doesn’t stop at a uniquely beautiful cup of coffee; it means a product that is ethical and sustainable:, socially, economically, and ecologically.
Here is what we are doing to ensure our coffee is truly Good
1. Ethical Coffee Sourcing
CGC is committed to participating in an ethical supply-chain. We work with specialty coffee importers and cooperatives to ensure that all of our coffee producers are not only exceeding the quality standards of specialty coffee, but that their farming methods are ecologically sustainable and that they receive a living wage.
This is accomplished through partnerships with importers whom we have grown to trust over time and who provide transparency reports and specific details from each farm. Our coffee often has a certifications attached to it (Organic, Fair-Trade, Rain-Forest Alliance, etc) but these certifications can sometimes miss on the more complicated ethical and economical dynamics of the specialty coffee industry.
Because CGC is committed to coffee that is both specialty and ethical, we look first at the details of the farming and trading practices and to labels and certifications second.
Here are our main suppliers and their notes on sustainability:
2. Good for Coffee Communities
In addition to ethical buying practices, Common Good is dedicated to investing in coffee communities. From 2016-2021 CGC was a monthly contributor to Coffee Kids, a 501c3 dedicated to enriching the lives of farming families and communities in Tanzania, Colombia, and Central America. Coffee Kids worked with the 18-30 year-old population- the next generation of coffee farmers- teaching them valuable business skills, educating them in specialty coffee, and providing seed capital to help them find ways to be profitable in and out of season. The Coffee Kids program was been discontinued as of Dec. 31, 2021 and since then we have been saving our contributions to put into our next social venture.More information on this will be realeased soon. Stay in Touch with CGC
When you buy Common Good you are supporting farming families all over the world and are taking part in a responsible and ethical supply chain.
3. Good For Local Communities
Common Good Coffee Goodness Campaign
CGC partners with San Diego non-profits every year by donating coffee, participating in food drives, and various matching programs. We want to partner with you in the areas that are most pressing in your community; to join in the work and causes that you care about most. To stay up to date on who we are working with, follow along in our monthly blog.
If you are giving to a non-profit, working on a particular cause, or know of a need, send us an email with some details and let’s do it together.
4. Good for our Planet
From environmentally destructive farming and deforestation at origin, carbon emissions of trans-world shipping, and the extreme amount of harmful packaging throughout the supply-chain, coffee can be very rough on our planet.
In order to make coffee that truly works for the common good, we have to do better. In addition to working with coffee producers who are dedicated to sustainable farming and processing practices, CGC is committed to eliminating the carbon footprint of our business. Since 2020 Common Good Coffee has completely offset it’s carbon footprint through its partnership with Carbonfund.org.
Here are some Examples of projects that our funding supports:
