Where We've Been in FY '09

Brewing A Better World means creating positive results in each of six key areas:

• Partnering with Supply-Chain Communities
• Supporting Local Communities  
• Protecting the Environment
• Building Demand for Sustainable Products 
• Working Together for Change 
• Creating a Great Place to Work 

This year, we’ve met – and even surpassed – many of our goals. Here are a few accomplishments of which we’re most proud.

• We approved the largest grant in our history ($500,000 over three years) to support a Save the Children® project in northern Nicaragua focused on bringing sustainable solutions to annual, cyclical months of food insecurity that range from 2-8 months per year.
• We committed $140,000 over four years to support a partnership with the University of Vermont to monitor and evaluate the CECOCAFEN food security project in Nicaragua. 
• We worked with a researcher from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture to help coffee farmers in northern Peru overcome the problem of “tired” soil. With our support, cooperative farmers are building a plant to provide locally produced, effective, low-cost organic fertilizer.
• We increased the cash resources allocated to our domestic outreach programs by over 200%, from $291,000 in FY ’08 to $973,000 in FY ’09.
• We logged nearly 10,000 hours of volunteer time, exceeding our goal of 8,000 hours.  A highlight was our annual participation in National River Cleanup Week, where over 125 employees logged more than 650 hours of volunteer time, pulling almost 200 tires and nearly two tons of waste out of a 7.5 mile stretch of the Winooski River in Vermont.
• We began expanding our domestic outreach programs to include the communities surrounding new production facilities as well as key geographies for our brands.
• We reduced our Specialty Coffee Business Unit energy metric in FY'09 by 23%, exceeding our goal of 10%.
• We reduced our Specialty Coffee Business Unit waste-to-landfill metric in FY'09 by 26%, exceeding our goal of 2%.
• We launched Changing Climate Change, a new enterprise-wide initiative aimed at better understanding, mitigating, and reducing our carbon footprint. Through the initiative, we awarded $800,000 total over five years in four separate grants to projects lead by Ceres, the National Parks Conservation Association, the New England Transportation Institute, and a joint project of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and Catholic Relief Services. The initiative also includes employee incentives, operational initiatives, and the continued purchase of renewable energy certificates to offset our estimated emissions.  
• The amount of Fair Trade Certified coffee pounds shipped increased by over 35% to nearly 12 million pounds.  As a percentage of total pounds shipped, over 30% was Fair Trade Certified™, a slight increase over FY ’08.  
• The amount of certified organic coffee pounds shipped increased by over 28% to more than 8 million pounds.  As a percentage of total pounds shipped, over 21% was certified organic, level with FY ’08 results.  
• We exceeded our goal of at least 30 hours of training by over 50%, logging in 46 hours of training on average. 
• We filled 18.6% of our positions internally, just off our goal of 20%
• We achieved our goal of a 10% reduction in our Injury Severity rate, while experiencing a slight rise in our Injury Frequency fate.
• We developed “Our Winning Combination,” a new enterprise-wide, three-module educational program that explores how corporate social responsibility supports—and is supported by—our financial success and strong family of brands.