While we do our best to minimize our footprint and use of resources we know that growing, producing and shipping product creates a carbon footprint.

We work with COTAP (Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty) to completely offset our carbon footprint for every aspect of our operations from farm to shipping.

COTAP counteracts carbon emissions through certified forestry projects in least-developed regions, which create transparent, accountable, and life-changing income streams for smallholder farmers who live in areas where earnings are typically less than $2 per day and where access to income streams can be scarce. 

"In developing regions around the world, hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas on less than $2 per day. This level of poverty forces communities to make hard choices between food, health care, and education. It is the poverty level where an estimated 11 million children die every year. Many of these communities are not fits for traditional microfinance, which tends to be primarily urban, and significant portions of their land are not suitable for agriculture.

While there are many promising technical innovations and development programs which can increase crop yields, there remains a geographic limitation on markets where such increased yields can be sold.

The result is that there are farming communities all over the world who could be made much less economically vulnerable if there were a way to generate significant supplemental income from non-crop land usage which did not rely on physical distribution.

Small-scale afforestation, reforestation, and agro-forestry programs have a proven track record of reaching such communities and for creating direct, significant, verifiable and lasting economic benefits for them." -cotap.org

Our projects for this year include:

-Taking Root’s Limay Community Carbon Project in Nicaragua.

-Ecotrust’s Trees for Global Benefits (TFGB) Community Carbon Project in Uganda.

-KSKHAW-UMWS’s Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Carbon Project in India.

-The Nakau Programme’s Drawa Rainforest Conservation Project in Fiji.

-KKI Warsi’s Bujang Raba Community PES Project in Indonesia.

-Cooperativa AMBIO’s Scolel’te Reforestation Project in Mexico.

Besides offsetting carbon these programs have the added benefits of:

-Controlling erosion

-Improving and protecting water quality

-Reduced flood risks

-Training in agroforestry techniques, fire management, tree nursery management, and carbon accounting and monitoring

-Increased income for individuals and communities

-Empowering women and marginalized groups through leadership opportunities, education, market access and employment

-Protecting habitat for endangered species

-Building resilience to climate change impacts

-Enhanced food security

-Favorably changing weather patterns through reforestation

To learn more visit https://cotap.org/