Le 22 octobre, Andy Orchard a reçu un Award P.E.A. pour le café Puro Fairtrade.
Le “People. Environnement. Achievement. Awards” est le principal concours sur le développement durable au Royaume-Uni. Le salon met en avant les pionniers de l’écologie et ceux qui font évoluer les produits, les services ainsi que les entreprises, et les récompense pour leur engagement en faveur de notre planète.
Andy Orchard, consultant en marketing international pour la marque Puro, a expliqué au jury comment les réserves Puro de la forêt tropicale couvrent désormais un territoire de plus de 430 km², soit une superficie plus grande que tous les parcs naturels du Royaume-Uni réunis. Puro protège désormais des superficies menacées par la déforestation de la forêt tropicale dans tous les pays où le café Puro est cultivé. Puro a également nommé trois nouvelles espèces de plantes et d’animaux en l’honneur de leur découverte dans la réserve de la forêt tropicale équatorienne. Pour conclure, Andy raconta que Puro poursuivra ses efforts et son engagement sur le chemin du bon café en harmonie avec la nature.
Le soir de la cérémonie de remise des prix, le jury a reconnu que Puro était “un café biologique avec un cœur pour la planète qui protège la forêt tropicale avec chaque kilo de café vendu”.
Andy a été très honoré de recevoir ce prix : “J’ai investi tellement de temps et d’énergie pour rendre à la nature ce qu’elle nous donne, que c’est un honneur de recevoir quelque chose d’aussi important. Un Award P.E.A. en reconnaissance de mes efforts et de ceux de toute l’équipe de Puro. C’est un privilège de voir comment le partenariat entre Puro Fairtrade Coffee et World Land Trust s’est maintenant pleinement épanoui. Ensemble, nous avons passé près de deux décennies à enrichir et à protéger la terre et à préserver la forêt tropicale afin qu’il y ait à nouveau de la place pour une croissance durable.”
Le discours complet d’Andy :
The Puro Fairtrade Coffee brand was conceived in 2005 by Belgian based coffee roaster Miko, a family owned company who have been active in the world of coffee for more than 220 years. The family had become concerned, not as to the state of the company their grandchildren would inherit, but rather the state of the natural world.
Puro’s mission: to better align coffee with community, conservation and climate, or the 3C’s as they are known internally. Puro’s ever mindful that when we disturb one C, the rest are thrown out of balance.
Averaged out over the last 16 years, every kilo of Puro coffee sold has protected 20m2 of rainforest. That’s threatened rainforest in coffee producing countries, home to hundreds of endangered species, vital water sources and indigenous communities. It’s all been possible thanks to an exclusive relationship with World Land Trust, UK based land conservation charity, for whom Sir David Attenborough is a patron. This relationship sees 2% of Puro coffee sales used to fund conservation in coffee producing countries.
Puro’s rainforest reserves now span more than 400km2 (surpassing the combined size of the UK’s 100 largest natural parks), preserving pockets of nature within all countries from which Puro coffee is sourced. Some might say honouring indigenous principles of giving back to the Earth from which we take and protecting it for the next seven generations. Puro’s commitment to conservation has earned them 3 species previously unknown to science, an orchid, a frog and a tree to be named in their honour.
Thanks to Puro’s coffee farm in Honduras and their own Fairtrade Organic cooperative membership status, they’ve been able to learn first-hand the challenges faced by coffee growing communities and influence from within, rather than dictating from afar.
Through Fairtrade, Puro ensures that coffee farmers receive a living wage for their work, but have also invested significant sums into community development projects, highlighting how balanced environments create bountiful harvests. Ensuring wastewater from coffee processing is filtered, cleaned and reused for irrigation rather than polluting rivers through “agua miel”. Tree planting, re-establishing natural boundaries on deforested land, helps to limit the impact of “roya” or coffee leaf rust disease and soil erosion.
Climate change and global warming are negatively impacting the coffee industry, making it increasingly challenging to farm coffee organically. Puro is a carbon neutral brand and a strong advocate for organic farming. As part of the move towards Net Zero, Puro is actively working alongside producer farms to help them limit their carbon, implementing natural solutions to natural problems.
Puro’s path will continue evolving, aligning organic growth with nature’s lessons of interconnectedness and natural balance, helping to pave the way for better business and companies with cause.
