OAKVILLE, O.N. – Reunion Island Coffee, one of North America’s premier coffee roasters and Roast Magazine 2013 Roaster of the Year finalist, announced today that the company has achieved status as a Certified B Corporation.
This exclusive designation is earned by companies that voluntarily meet higher standards for transparency, accountability and performance in an effort to distinguish themselves in a cluttered marketplace by offering a positive vision of a better way to do business.
“For Reunion Island Coffee, sustainability means taking an uncompromising approach to every facet of our business,” said Reunion Island Director of Coffee, Adam Pesce. “We look at the social, environmental and economic impacts of all of our activities from the way we source our coffee to the way we operate our business at home.
B Corp provides us with a framework to ensure that we’re operating in a way that will sustain our business while helping the producers we work with, our employees, and our community to sustain themselves.”
For Reunion Island, achieving B Corp Certification is confirmation that their company mission of providing customers with the highest quality coffee without compromising their commitment to sustainability is on the right track.
But like any B Corp, they know that their actions speak louder than words:
- Reunion Island is Canada’s largest coffee roaster to be bullfrogpowered with 100% green electricity; to date, they have reduced their carbon footprint by over 420 tons of CO2, 564 kg of NO, 1036 kg of SO2 and 41 kg of high-level radioactive waste.
- They have planted more than 170,000 trees through their Sierra Verde Project in partnership with Trees for the Future whereby two trees are planted in a coffee producing country for every pound of Sierra Verde coffee sold.
- Reunion Island established Direct Trade relationships with coffee farmers in Colombia, Honduras, Brazil, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Papua New Guinea. Through these relationships, they have significantly improved not only the quality of their coffee, but the quality of life for the coffee farmers, their workers, and their families.
- After four years of R&D, Reunion Island is in the final testing phase of the development of a fully compostable packaging film for pods and other coffees that will make it possible to eliminate all pod packaging from landfills.
- Closer to home, Reunion Island has spearheaded a pilot project to help ex-prisoners reintegrate into the workforce through the coffee industry.
“Within the industry, we’re recognized for the leadership role that we play,” said Pesce. “We are committed to practices that raise consumers’ value perceptions of great coffee. By expanding our support for charitable organizations, we hope to make life better in coffee-growing nations and for others here at home.”
Understanding the effort required to achieve the designation, Reunion Island sought the resources and expertise of MaRS, Toronto’s social innovation leader. MaRS assisted Reunion Island throughout the B Corp application process to ensure all their efforts to improve the sustainability of the coffee industry, from the farms to the roasters, would be recognized.
“The B Corp certification process is arduous. And for a company so focused on coffee, it’s something we didn’t have the internal resources to tackle” said Pesce. “MaRS played a huge role in helping us achieve B Corp status and for that we owe their whole team a great deal of gratitude.”
Reunion Island believes that the B Corp framework will enhance their efforts to achieve a more sustainable supply chain and create a truly innovative business model for coffee, one where the producer, consumer and everyone in between are all financially, environmentally and socially stable.
About Reunion Island Coffee
Founded in 1995, Reunion Island Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster located just outside of Toronto, Ontario. Over the past 18 years, they have established themselves as one of North America’s premier roasters and were named as a finalist for Roast Magazine’s 2013 Roaster of the Year.
Reunion Island maintains this standing through an unwavering commitment to quality, sustainability and innovation.
Reunion Island Coffee is a customer-driven business with deep roots in the Canadian coffee industry. Their customer list includes trendsetting cafes, celebrity chefs, and five-star hotels along with world-class retailers, e-tailers, institutions and office coffee services.
With an expansive line of fresh quality coffee, tea and allied products, Reunion Island is firmly committed to supporting sustainable coffee farming and offer a growing line of Organic, Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade coffees.
