A Fair Cup – Fighting Climate Change –
with Coffee!
A Fair Cup has now become a
‘carbon negative’ operation! We have taken the decision to offset all
our operation’s carbon emissions by investing in energy saving and
renewable energy projects around the World.
Carbon offsetting is when
an individual or organisation pays someone to reduce carbon emissions in
the atmosphere by the same amount as the individual or organisation adds
by their activities. However, the first step must always be to reduce your
‘carbon footprint’.
It was important to us to
try and reduce our carbon footprint as much as we could. We’re doing
well with this, we’ve switched to energy saving light bulbs, we recycle
as much as we can, all our staff cycle to work and in April we hope the
City Council will be providing us with green/renewable electricity. But we
wanted to do more to help fight Climate Change. That’s why we decided to
offset all our operation's carbon emissions.
After our carbon footprint
had been calculated we decided to offset twice the amount of carbon
emissions A Fair Cup was responsible for, therefore making our operation
‘carbon negative’.
The projects that we
decided to invest in are managed by leading carbon offset company, Climate
Care. These include providing energy-saving light bulbs to communities
in Kazakhstan and South Africa and providing fuel-efficient stoves to
communities in Mexico and Honduras.
For instance, the South
African project provides low-income families with energy-saving bulbs to
replace their old inefficient traditional light bulbs. As 95% of South
Africa’s energy is produced by coal power stations, the CO2 emissions
per unit of energy are among the highest in the World. Each replacement
bulb saves 0.1 tonnes of CO2 a year and in 2005 approximately 50,000 bulbs
were installed.
Bristol
West MP, Stephen Williams said “I congratulate A Fair Cup on their
initiative. We can all do more to reduce our carbon footprint and I’m
delighted to see one of the city’s prominent businesses acting in such
an ethical way”.
Local Councillor Mark
Wright said, "It's great to see small businesses leading the way to
cut carbon emissions. When enough do so, it will have an effect on the big
corporations"
Thanks guys! We’re determined to keep on doing our bit!
30/01/07
Minister for International Development Enjoys ‘A Fair Cup’
Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development, visited ‘A Fair Cup’ today to help support Fairtrade whilst out on the campaign trail. He was interested to see what we were doing and even helped to make a couple of coffees. The Department of International Development is a strong supporter of Fairtrade and recently announced increased funding of £750,000 for the Fairtrade Foundation, the body involved in promoting and certifying Fairtrade products in the UK. Hilary said, “Fairtrade reaches out across the Globe and connects buyer and seller and does not depend on World Trade talks for something to happen. That is what makes it so powerful.”
07/04/05
Bristol Gains 'Fairtrade City' Status!
'A Fair Cup' also featured in Local Press.
On March 4th 2005
Bristol officially became a 'Fairtrade City'. The city's new status was
celebrated by a presentation and Fairtrade breakfast on board the ss Great
Britain. Regina Joseph, a Fairtrade banana grower from Dominica in the
Windward Isles presented the certification to Bristol's Lord Mayor Simon
Cook.
'A Fair Cup' received a write-up in a feature on Bristol's ever increasing
amount of Fairtrade outlets. Click here
or on the image (right) to open the article.
05/03/05
'A Fair Cup' Featured
in Bristol Evening Post.
'A Fair Cup' was featured in a section on local ethical businesses. Click here or on the image (right) to open the article.
08/06/04
Bristol MP visits ‘A
Fair Cup’ to support Fairtrade.
Bristol Labour MP, Valerie Davey, has visited ‘A Fair Cup’ to express her support for Fairtrade.
She said:
"I am delighted that there is a conveniently-located outlet in Bristol selling Fairtrade Coffee. Fairtrade is so important, as it ensures that coffee growers around the world benefit from their work by receiving a fair price for their produce. I will especially enjoy the coffee I buy from ‘A Fair Cup’."
Thanks for your support Valerie! And we will enjoy making ‘A Fair Cup’ for you…
02/09/03
