Our Journey
Creating the ultimate coffee experience in every life we touch from tree to cup, transforming the way the world understands business.
-Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. Purpose Statement
We’ve been working nearly 30 years at creating and sharing the ultimate coffee experience with you. For us, the ultimate coffee experience goes beyond simply the quality in the cup to encompass the quality of both our environment and all the relationships that help us deliver on our goals – it involves our consumers, customers, employees, suppliers, local and supply-chain communities, and all our stakeholders. It is an experience that we aim to make environmentally sound, socially equitable, and undeniably delicious.
Corporate Social Responsibility at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has evolved over the years, transforming from small grassroots initiatives to initiatives that take on more technically-demanding challenges, address more sophisticated problems, help us manage both opportunities and risks in a more integrated way, and contribute to a better business model:
1983 – Began composting coffee grounds in our retail shops.
1989 - Developed Earth-Friendly™ Coffee Filters. Oxygen-whitened and dioxin-free.
1996 - Developed the industry’s first biodegradable bag for bulk coffee purchases.
2000 - Signed an agreement with TransFair USA to certify our organic coffees as Fair Trade Certified™.
2003 - Began offsetting our greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits.
2006 - Developed an eco-friendly hot paper cup, and introduced cold beverage cups and lids made from renewable resources
2007 – Funded research through the University of Vermont demonstrating connection between effective employee volunteerism programs and higher employee satisfaction metrics.
2008 - Established the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Board of Directors.
2009 - Installed a 100kW photovoltaic array, which uses solar energy collected from the roof of our Waterbury distribution center to power the facility.
We contribute 5% of pre-tax profits every year to support socially and environmentally responsible initiatives – our contributions totaled over $3.6 million in FY ’09. We are developing new programs and broadening our employee engagement efforts
Our initiatives are organized into six practice areas that span our value chain and are communicated under the banner of Brewing a Better World: Partnering with Supply-Chain Communities, Supporting Local Communities, Protecting the Environment, Building Demand for Sustainable Products, Working Together for Change, and Creating a Great Place to Work.
In this summary of highlights from fiscal 2009, we hope to share with you a little of what we’re all about, where we’ve been, and where we’re going in the future. We hope you’ll join us on our journey.
Mike Dupee
Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility