What is a Positive Planet certification?

Positive Planet: What does it mean?

You might have noticed the terms ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘positive planet’ on our website. But what do they mean? We’ve always been a roastery mindful of our impact on the planet. Our commitment to being climate-positive led us to pursue carbon neutrality, and we achieved certification in the summer of 2023. So, how does ‘positive planet’ fit into all of this? Keep reading, friends!

What is Positive Planet?

Positive Planet is our partner in this sustainability journey. They help businesses and organisations like us calculate their carbon footprint, paving the way to become Net Zero. Our journey began with Ecologi, where we funded tree planting and supported 46 verified carbon avoidance projects. Now, with Positive Planet, we’re taking our sustainability goals to the next level, working towards becoming Net Zero.

We have now received our carbon footprint analysis for 2023, in which they evaluated our annual carbon footprint by calculating the tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e). This measurement accounts for our emissions of all 7 greenhouse gases noted in the UNFCC Kyoto Protocol and their relative global warming potential values (GWP) as recommended by The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the UK Government Public Procurement Notice 06/21.

Emission scopes explained

Once our footprint has been calculated, it is measured across three Scopes.

Scope 1. is our direct emissions. These are things such as company vehicles, buildings and facilities.

Scope 2. is our indirect emissions. This is the electricity we purchased (steam, heating, cooling) for business use.

Scope 3. is upstream and downstream emissions. Upstream includes commuting, business travel, transportation from suppliers and purchased goods & services. Downstream activities include deliveries to customers and using and disposing of our products.

With this data, we better understand the carbon impact of Two Chimps and can identify our hot spots. The next step is to reduce and offset as much as we can!

Carbon offsetting

As a team and a business, we try to be as green thinking as possible. We have stickers and signs dotted all around the roastery reminding us to switch off lights when we leave a room, turn off plug sockets and only fill the kettle with as much water as needed (we even have a fancy one which glows red when it has been recently boiled, so you know the water is already warm and doesn’t need to be switched on again!)

For things we can’t reduce on-site, we support multiple offsetting projects. So far, we have stopped 3,630 plastic items from the ocean and started our second Two Chimps Forest, which is already up to 3,630 trees! Combined with our first Two Chimps Forest, we began with Ecologi; this takes our tree count to 10,094. Trees are truly climate champions as they sequester CO2, help restore healthy ecosystems, and store even more carbon in soils and plant biomass.

Ethically sourced coffee

We ethically source our speciality Arabica from a small supply chain. This ensures the coffee is morally sound, and the farmers receive their fairest price for their produce, paying 30-120% more. This contrasts with commodity coffee, which is produced on an industrial scale and farmed by machines rather than people.

This affects the livelihood of the local coffee-growing population and the sustainability of that farming area due to poor agricultural techniques. The low wages also force communities to partake in bad climate practices such as illegal logging, which causes mass deforestation.

Where are we at with our carbon reduction plan today?

We are proud to share that we have reduced our emissions by 15.3 tCO₂e from 2023 to 2022, and we have goals to further reduce this in 2024.

Want to try some carbon-neutral coffee?

Shop here!