MONTREAL, QC, Canada — RGC Coffee is pleased to announce it received the 2020 Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) Sustainability Award in the Project category for “Las Manos del Café”. The Award, announced on July 7, was formally shared at this year’s SCA Re:co Symposium on Thursday, July 16.
“We see this award as recognition for all of our sustainability efforts with suppliers and partners in different parts of the world,” says Angela Pelaez, Sustainability Manager for RGC Americas, RGC Coffee’s subsidiary based in Bogota, Colombia. “For over a decade, we have built sustainability initiatives into our business. Our commitment is to preserve communities and ecosystems that make coffee flourish. For everyone at RGC, this prestigious award is the culmination of the last 15 years of hard work and persistence building sustainability programs at origin.”
This particular project, “Las Manos del Café”, is the first of its kind in Colombia. It aims to implement new ways to improve the well-being and socio-economic livelihood of farmworkers, who represent a valuable part of the coffee supply chain. Since the project launched, it has been successfully employed in three farming cooperatives in the department of Caldas with 9,099 direct beneficiaries – 6,574 of which are farmworkers and 2,525 are family members.
The selection process for the 2020 Sustainability Awards was led by a committee of staff and volunteers in the SCA Sustainability Department, and the winners were chosen by individual votes from the committee’s members.
RGC Coffee thanks the SCA, which has the important role of promoting work at origin in specialty coffee, as well as elevating the roles of coffee producers and farmworkers. We applaud Dr. Timothy Schilling, Founder of World Coffee Research and well-deserved award-winner of the Sustainability Champion category. We also congratulate Cooperative Coffees, another Montreal-based organization, for their Business Model award.
About RGC Coffee Inc.
RGC Coffee is a 50-year-old privately held importer of green coffee. Privately-owned & operated, providing in-depth expertise to roasters and retailers in the premium and specialty coffee markets. As a forward-thinking company, RGC promotes sustainable development to preserve and enhance the communities and ecosystems where coffee grows.
RGC Coffee 3E (Elevate, Empower, Elevate) Sustainability Program currently covers 33 active projects in 5 Latin American origin countries to help promote the social well-being of farmers, their families & communities. We believe that collaboration is the key to unlocking the power of our work in sustainability. To learn more about RGC Coffee, please visit rgccoffee.com
