Bidding has closed, and voting begins. Carrotmob Vancouver wants to know who YOU think should win “the mob”! All of the participating coffee shops have made excellent bids, but these video clips will help you decide who should be the final winner. We’ve asked each coffee shop representative to tell us about what they already do to be socially and environmentally conscious, and what they would like to do with the money if they win. This is where it gets interesting, and you get the opportunity to support the coffee shop that you think is making the biggest commitment to reducing their environmental impact.
Watch and share the interviews on our YouTube channel or here:
Waves Coffee – Upgrade to Energy Efficient Lighting, Water Efficient Toilets/Faucets, Refrigeration Seals
Love Saltspring coffee. Their roasting skills preserve the flavourful characteristics of the bean.
Particularly enjoy their French Roast style.
Served with great style and panache in my favourite coffee shop by baristas extraorinaire!
Great ideas from all. I think Saltspring and Re-Entry are already on top of most of these things, and will do any other mods they want either way. I think it would be great to help out the smaller places. Spread the word more. A wider variety of customers would see these great things, no matter what cafe they go to. Go Java-Licious!
Carrot Mobs are great, such a fun way to build awareness for consumer behaviour and its ability to influence business. I was at the sushi carrot mob on Robson St last year which was a good time. It’ll be fun to come out to this next one.
Many coffee roasters and cafes have done a good job starting to look at the social and environmental impacts of their business and industry. Its great to see so much activity in this space. Over the last few years I’ve got to know the folks at Salt Spring Coffee. It’s interesting to see how a guy like Mickey and his passion for social responsibility have shaped an industry. He’s been at it a long time, long before it was trendy, so it’s great to see them as leaders in the fair trade organic coffee space.
It’s good to get on the bandwagon especially when it comes to helping the environment. You see it all the time now with people who claim to be spiritual toward the environment and who want to help bring equality and fair trade blah blah blah.
The coffee that impresses me the most, Mickey and Robin McLeod of Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee.
They are the original organic fair trade coffee roasters probably in all of Canada. They travel to coffee co-ops to ensure the beans are the business and the business is ethical. This isn’t a new thing for them – they’ve been doing it since well before it was en vogue and they were doing it when it cost them a pretty penny to maintain their principles – much like the reason why I don’t eat wholly organic… I am too cheap to justify the cost and I try to put my head in the sand about what I am missing.
I drink Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee – Mundo Unido. I LOVE IT. It is the perfect strong earthy roast that makes that nice rich brown creamy froth in my French Press.
The best thing about SSI Coffee is that I can buy it and feel good about what I am buying while still maintaining my principles of cheapness and going the high road with organic fair trade and supporting a company that collectively impresses the heck out of me. I switched our company over to it after personally falling in love with it and as a result I have made coffee drinkers of our crew at Footprints Recruiting. I reckon our coffee is also one of the reasons why our staff doesn’t turn over as often as other places:)
Thank you Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee for making such a great brew AND for making me and our company more aware of our Footprint or our impact internationally.
SaltSpring Coffee – great coffee, great people and a deep passion for social justice and environmental sustainabilty. These folks really mean it. And the coffee is superb!
I’ve only been to Salt Spring a couple of times but both times I was met with bad attitude so, despite their pitch, my vote goes to Re-Entry – love the idea!
Salt Spring Coffee – do a little research people and you will find out that their roasting facility is a huge pollution factory – stinking and fuel-wasting – not carbon-cool, not environmentally friendly at all! You are being misled by the spin-doctors.
I am just curious why you think that only Salt Spring Coffee is a huge pollution factory. All coffee roasted needs to be done by similar methods which would put all of these companies in the same boat or at least the companies they get their coffee from. Then it becomes a supply chain issue.
There is no question that roasting coffee is a huge energy consumer but once again all coffee roasting is in the same boat. In order to reduce or eliminate odor that takes even more energy.
All a coffee company can do is the best possible job at being aware of these issues and try to reduce when possible.
The next best thing would be to not roast coffee at all and that would have an absolute zero carbon footprint.
But where would people get there morning coffee enjoyment from then ??
I gotta agree with Mickey here. Claudia, where do you work? The Island’s Trust? Or for some other coffee company? You must have some kind of motive behind your slanderous comments.
There’s no such thing as a sustainable business. It’s a journey to reduce impact on the environment and create restorative systems in how we make things happen and get the things we want and need.
I say “So right, So smart” last night at the Projecting Change film festival and there was a quote that I wanted to share.
“Sustainable business is like teen sex, everyone’s talking about it, few are doing it, and nobody’s doing it well”. Salt Spring Coffee have been leaders for a decade in this space, making the coffee industry MORE sustainable. It would be great if you could show us an example of other coffee roasters who are doing it better.
Some other people on this forum have suggested that we should support other coffee businesses to help them along the path towards sustainability and this may be right. Salt Spring are already well on there way and we could encourage others to see the value and opportunity to follow suit. There is legitimacy in that.
Saltspring Coffee is already on a roll, which is great! With that in mind, wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interests to help out the smaller places who aren’t at the level Saltspring Coffee is yet at?
Yes they are on a roll, that is true but shouldn’t we all get behind a company that has the ability to stand up to the likes of the Starbucks out there?
It seems that Carrot Mob’s “win-win” initiative is to promote businesses while encouraging them to become more enviromentally responsible. So I say let’s not preach (mob) to the converted (Salt Spring Coffee)…let’s mob new recruits and grow the movement!
[...] CLICK HERE TO VOTE! [...]
Love Saltspring coffee. Their roasting skills preserve the flavourful characteristics of the bean.
Particularly enjoy their French Roast style.
Served with great style and panache in my favourite coffee shop by baristas extraorinaire!
Many thanks and happy roasting+imbibing, Ian
Great ideas from all. I think Saltspring and Re-Entry are already on top of most of these things, and will do any other mods they want either way. I think it would be great to help out the smaller places. Spread the word more. A wider variety of customers would see these great things, no matter what cafe they go to. Go Java-Licious!
Saltspring all the way!!!
Carrot Mobs are great, such a fun way to build awareness for consumer behaviour and its ability to influence business. I was at the sushi carrot mob on Robson St last year which was a good time. It’ll be fun to come out to this next one.
Many coffee roasters and cafes have done a good job starting to look at the social and environmental impacts of their business and industry. Its great to see so much activity in this space. Over the last few years I’ve got to know the folks at Salt Spring Coffee. It’s interesting to see how a guy like Mickey and his passion for social responsibility have shaped an industry. He’s been at it a long time, long before it was trendy, so it’s great to see them as leaders in the fair trade organic coffee space.
Check out my column on the Tyee, you will see why I am voting for ReEntry Espresso!!
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/04/30/Slurp/
SaltSpring Coffee is the greatest!
It’s good to get on the bandwagon especially when it comes to helping the environment. You see it all the time now with people who claim to be spiritual toward the environment and who want to help bring equality and fair trade blah blah blah.
The coffee that impresses me the most, Mickey and Robin McLeod of Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee.
They are the original organic fair trade coffee roasters probably in all of Canada. They travel to coffee co-ops to ensure the beans are the business and the business is ethical. This isn’t a new thing for them – they’ve been doing it since well before it was en vogue and they were doing it when it cost them a pretty penny to maintain their principles – much like the reason why I don’t eat wholly organic… I am too cheap to justify the cost and I try to put my head in the sand about what I am missing.
I drink Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee – Mundo Unido. I LOVE IT. It is the perfect strong earthy roast that makes that nice rich brown creamy froth in my French Press.
The best thing about SSI Coffee is that I can buy it and feel good about what I am buying while still maintaining my principles of cheapness and going the high road with organic fair trade and supporting a company that collectively impresses the heck out of me. I switched our company over to it after personally falling in love with it and as a result I have made coffee drinkers of our crew at Footprints Recruiting. I reckon our coffee is also one of the reasons why our staff doesn’t turn over as often as other places:)
Thank you Saltspring Roasting Company Coffee for making such a great brew AND for making me and our company more aware of our Footprint or our impact internationally.
Java-Licious is new business for these guys and definitely worth checking out. They are so nice and the snacks are awesome!
SaltSpring Coffee – great coffee, great people and a deep passion for social justice and environmental sustainabilty. These folks really mean it. And the coffee is superb!
I’ve only been to Salt Spring a couple of times but both times I was met with bad attitude so, despite their pitch, my vote goes to Re-Entry – love the idea!
Saltspring coffee gets my vote for sure!
SaltSpring coffee is the bestest!!! <3
Salt Spring Coffee – do a little research people and you will find out that their roasting facility is a huge pollution factory – stinking and fuel-wasting – not carbon-cool, not environmentally friendly at all! You are being misled by the spin-doctors.
I am just curious why you think that only Salt Spring Coffee is a huge pollution factory. All coffee roasted needs to be done by similar methods which would put all of these companies in the same boat or at least the companies they get their coffee from. Then it becomes a supply chain issue.
There is no question that roasting coffee is a huge energy consumer but once again all coffee roasting is in the same boat. In order to reduce or eliminate odor that takes even more energy.
All a coffee company can do is the best possible job at being aware of these issues and try to reduce when possible.
The next best thing would be to not roast coffee at all and that would have an absolute zero carbon footprint.
But where would people get there morning coffee enjoyment from then ??
I gotta agree with Mickey here. Claudia, where do you work? The Island’s Trust? Or for some other coffee company? You must have some kind of motive behind your slanderous comments.
There’s no such thing as a sustainable business. It’s a journey to reduce impact on the environment and create restorative systems in how we make things happen and get the things we want and need.
I say “So right, So smart” last night at the Projecting Change film festival and there was a quote that I wanted to share.
“Sustainable business is like teen sex, everyone’s talking about it, few are doing it, and nobody’s doing it well”. Salt Spring Coffee have been leaders for a decade in this space, making the coffee industry MORE sustainable. It would be great if you could show us an example of other coffee roasters who are doing it better.
Some other people on this forum have suggested that we should support other coffee businesses to help them along the path towards sustainability and this may be right. Salt Spring are already well on there way and we could encourage others to see the value and opportunity to follow suit. There is legitimacy in that.
Saltspring Coffee is already on a roll, which is great! With that in mind, wouldn’t it be in everyone’s best interests to help out the smaller places who aren’t at the level Saltspring Coffee is yet at?
Yes they are on a roll, that is true but shouldn’t we all get behind a company that has the ability to stand up to the likes of the Starbucks out there?
It seems that Carrot Mob’s “win-win” initiative is to promote businesses while encouraging them to become more enviromentally responsible. So I say let’s not preach (mob) to the converted (Salt Spring Coffee)…let’s mob new recruits and grow the movement!
Sue