Green Entrpreneur Needs Your Vote; Win Start-Up Money from www.ideablob.com

I just got an interesting e-mail on the subject of fair trade and organic coffee.

Coffee, as you have read on this blog, is one tropical food product that can be grown sustainably, without cutting down rain forest trees. Most organic arabica beans are shade-grown. So I am inclined to support this woman's idea. Readers, she needs our votes in a competition for start-up money on www.ideablob.com.

Here's what she wrote me:

"I am in the process of starting my own completely fair trade, completely organic coffeehouse. Currently, my business idea is featured on a website called www.ideablob.com--a site where people post their business ideas in order to network and gain advice. In addition, they offer a $10,000 to put towards the business for whoever has the most votes at the end of the month. I am currently a finalist and desperately need votes. I don't know if you would consider posting something on your blog to help out a budding entrepreneur who is passionate about fair trade, but if you might consider, the information you would need to post would look something like this:

Here's how to vote:

1. Go to www.ideablob.com

2. Click on the vote icon next to "Fair Trade Organic Coffeehouse Sponsoring Social Justice Causes"

3. Tell your friends to vote too.

Thanks for your time and know that I would greatly appreciate any help you might be able to give me. Janice"

Readers, I went to www.ideablob.com, and here is the description I found there for Janice's idea:

"I want to create a completely fair trade, completely organic coffeehouse that sponsors social justice causes while taking care with the environment. In addition to serving fair trade coffee, we will also only use fair trade sugar, tea, and cocoa as we educate our consumers on how their buying habits affect the working poor in developing countries. Every month, this coffeehouse would sponsor a social justice cause--promoting awareness to customers about worldwide issues of injustice. This coffeehouse will also have free wifi, live music, local art--all with a community emphasis."

Interesting idea to have such a website as ideablob. I like it.

Readers see this important post too, about the Coffee and Conservation blog I just discovered. Julie has done an amazingly thorough job of investigating the good and the ugly among coffee producers.

Sally

Keywords:: certified coffee, organic coffee, fair trade coffee, fair trade, coffee, rainforest, entrepreneur, ideablob, sustainable

Conservation & Coffee - a great blog

I discovered a great new green blog this week.

"Coffee & Conservation" at www.coffeehabitat.com is the blog of an ornithologist, Julie, who has thoroughly investigated the agricultural methods of coffee companies. Her investigation has answered a lot of questions about which companies are using sustainable methods, and which ones aren't. If you want to buy bird-friendly coffee, or labor-friendly coffee, or 100% arabica, check out Julie's blog. She kindly wrote to me to tell me that Millstone Coffee is not as green as they profess to be. This was in reference to a post I wrote here on Veggie Revolution on Bird-friendly Chocolate and Coffee on December 6, 2007.

For the real deal about Millstone Coffee, see Julie's post:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2007/03/millstones_orga.html

Julie also says that Rainforest Alliance's environmental criteria for certifying coffee are not as stringent as Smithsonian's. She goes into this in several posts; here's one:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2007/07/quick-look-at-d.html

Even if the Millstone line were sustainable, P&G, and the other large conglomerates, played -- and continue to play -- a large role in the coffee crisis, which Julie outlines here:
http://www.coffeehabitat.com/2006/02/the_coffee_cris.html

Here's P&G's corporate responsibility profile:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=279

So. If you enjoy drinking coffee, like I do, let's pay more attention to how it's being grown. Coffee is one crop that can be grown in rain forests without cutting down trees. It's important that consumers who care make the effort to support sustainable tropical agriculture. If we don't support it, who will?

Key words:: certified coffee, organic coffee, fair trade coffee, fair trade, coffee, rainforest, entrepreneur, sustainable, conglomerate