Our commitment to Earth every day as a B Corporation®

Sadly, Earth Month has come to an end! To wrap it up, let’s dive deeper into what being a B Corporation® communicates about our commitment to the Earth. 

First things first – What is a B Corporation®?

Any for-profit business can join the global B Corporation (B Corp) network by earning a certification from the nonprofit network B Lab. This thorough and holistic certification standardizes what business models and values are recognized as fostering a transparent, inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.

B Corps share a goal of using business as a force for social and environmental good, and pave the way for corporations to be purpose-driven and benefit all stakeholders, not only shareholders.

Groundwork became a certified B Corp® in 2022. 

B Lab awards a B Impact Score (out of 250 total) to businesses to standardize the assessment of how “good” a business is. This overall score includes five impact areas: Community, Customers, Environment, Governance, and Workers. 

Our Impact Score of 93.5 is well above the certification requirement of 80 points and even higher above the median score of 50.9 for an ordinary business. Periodic reviews of our business practices and impact on our stakeholders are required to maintain our certification – and we intend not only to maintain but to continue to improve our score.

Highlights of our Environment score

The Environment score “evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity.” This includes the direct impact of our operations, supply chain, and distribution, and recognizes our environmentally innovative production processes and products. 

In particular, Groundwork excels at using clean energy, reducing packaging waste, and restoring the environment:  

We power our roastery with clean energy. 

If not done efficiently, coffee roasting can use a huge amount of energy and produce a ton of air pollution. So, we prioritized a hybrid/gas-electric coffee roaster that utilizes an ultra-low NOx power burner (that means it reduces air pollution of the nitrogen oxides NO and NO2). The solar panels on the roof of our roastery generate enough energy to power the entire building, including our roasting machinery. Plus, we have energy- and water-efficient appliances at our roasting facility and headquarters. 

We use recyclable packaging wherever possible and our coffee bags contribute less waste to landfills. 

Finding a balance between sustainable packaging and preserving the quality of coffee is tricky, but we found it in Biotre® coffee bags. The Biotre bags we package our coffee in are 60% biodegradable, as they’re composed of compostable wood pulp and a polyethylene liner that breaks down in 5-10 years (much faster than a conventional fossil-fuel-based liner).

We’re helping to lead the Regenerative Organic Coffee movement.

Because agriculture is one of the global systems with the greatest influences on environmental health, we’ve always helped coffee producers transition to and upkeep organic and regenerative farming. About 50% of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, so every farm that joins us in the Regenerative Organic movement is instrumental to bettering the fate of our Earth. 

We were the first coffee roaster certified by the Regenerative Organic Alliance and we imported the first container of Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) coffee into the U.S. We are continuing to grow the number of coffee origins from which we source ROC. 

“The bulk of our effort has been on deepening our work at origin, trying to find new groups to start a project with, and taking a deep dive into the Regenerative Organic movement,” says Jeff Chean, Groundwork’s co-founder and Chief Coffee Guy.

Come with us on this Regenerative Organic Coffee journey and make every month Earth Month!