AHEC IS GOING GREEN

“I’LL DRINK TO THAT!”

Upstate AHEC staff caters to their taste buds whenever possible, and going green has caused us to pay increasing attention to the sources of our food and drink.  It has also resulted in some modifications in our purchasing habits.  One of the most interesting and delicious changes has been our office’s shift from the use of Brand X coffee, bought in bulk at a local discount store, to a shade grown, sustainably-farmed variety produced in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe.  The same family who farms the coffee also roasts the coffee as Leopard Forest Coffee Company, in the foothills of the SC Blue Ridge Mountains – coffee farmer direct!  Leopard Forest is considered a “vertically integrated” coffee farming operation, one of only a handful in the entire U.S.A., which means the same farmer who produces the coffee, exports it, imports it, warehouses it, and roasts it – and if you go to their café (which I strongly recommend) you can get a cup of it.  With Leopard Forest coffee, we get the best of both worlds: we are supporting an environmentally sound operation in Africa that takes care of its workers AND we are buying locally! 

We are so impressed with the coffee, its producers, and their commitment to conservation that we wanted to share their story with you.  So, I am reprinting (with permission) the following information found on the back of the 14oz, hermitically sealed, package of Leopard Forest Estate AA+ coffee normally located our kitchen pantry.

“In the late 1950s farmers began to plant coffee in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, which separate the sweltering plains of Mozambique from the sweeping high veldt of Zimbabwe.  The high rainfall, mists and mild climate make coffee growing conditions similar to those of the Kenyan Highlands.  Our area’s cool indigenous forest is home to the leopard, rare Blue duiker, Knysna lourie and Samango monkey, and our estate strives to preserve this unique ecosystem, producing shade coffee that is extraordinary for East Africa.

Our farm has produced superior coffee since 1965 and many times been the winner of the highest quality and best cupping awards in Zimbabwe, achieved by combining fine Kenyan varieties of 100% Arabica with sustainable farming methods.  We have been a pioneer in the field of ecological balance, and in 2002 we received the prestigious farm management award from the Zimbabwe Coffee Growers Association.  The award is not only for innovative farming techniques, but also high quality of life for our employees and land conservation.”

Wow!  Upstate AHEC employees are thrilled to be able to support the efforts of this wonderful, responsible, and really GREEN company while enjoying a truly fabulous cup of coffee.  If you want to join us, you can visit the Leopard Forest Coffee Company at their shop:  26 S. Main Street, Travelers Rest, SC 29690, or online at www.leopardforestcoffee.com.

We’re Warming to the Green Experience

With apologies to Kermit the Frog, I want to say, “It’s not easy going green!”  In fact, it can be downright scary as you try to decide where and how to begin your efforts.  Accustomed as we are here at Upstate AHEC to developing plans based upon identified needs, we assumed the logical first step would be an audit of current practices.  Our “score” would then determine our priorities for change.

Seems reasonable, right?  Hah!  We located evaluations aplenty for big businesses, manufacturers, and schools, but a user-friendly tool appropriate for a small, non-profit organization has so far eluded us.  Even the resources cited in the very informative “Greening Your Business, A Primer for Smaller Companies” (available at www.GreenBiz.com) are more applicable to midsized for-profits.  Our reaction to this apparent gap has been to develop and test our own assessment instrument that ultimately can be made available to other, similarly situated, organizations.   More on this at a later date.

Meanwhile, we didn’t want to put our greening efforts on hold until we had the perfect tool in place.  So, we put in place several actions that we knew could make a difference.  One of the most important organizational changes we have implemented is neither new nor permanent but its benefits are significant:

For the second year, Upstate AHEC is observing “summer hours.”  This means that, while all off-site AHEC sponsored programs and activities will continue as usual, the office will be closed on Mondays from Memorial Day through Labor Day.  While four, ten-hour work days can be tedious, we’ve learned that those three-day weekends increase staff morale while reducing our energy usage and costs.   Last summer, by maintaining weekend air temperatures at 80 degrees, we decreased our kilowatt usage by 2,462 hours over the same time period in 2005.  Environmentally, this translates into the same benefits we could obtain if three of our staff stopped driving their cars for a year or if we planted 12 acres of trees!  And, as a bonus, our electric bill dropped by $154 even though energy costs were significantly higher.

Cool savings, huh?       

It is probably no surprise to learn that the staff of Upstate AHEC spend a considerable amount of time thinking and talking about “mission,”  “stewardship” and “sustainability.”  After all, as responsible members of a small, not-for-profit organization, how could we not reflect regularly on these topics?  It might, however, seem more unusual when we tell you that, increasingly, our discussions haven’t been framed in the more traditional financial context, but rather in the equally compelling, if less common, environmental one.  For more than a year now, we have been exploring questions such as:

• Shouldn’t true stewardship extend to the environmental as well as the financial resources entrusted to our organization?

• Is it good business to diligently seek sustainable funding but ignore simple opportunities to foster a sustainable work environment?

• Can we ethically position ourselves as leaders in health professions’ education without demonstrating leadership in environmental health?

Our answers have been and emphatic: “Yes,” “No,” and “No” – in that order!  In fact, we’ve decided that becoming more environmentally astute is an essential component of AHEC’s broader commitment service, integrity, dedication, and excellence. Put more simply:  it is the right thing to do; and so, we are doing it. 

Upstate AHEC is GOING GREEN!  And you are invited to follow our progress by reading our web-diary which will be maintained on this site and will include our mistakes as well as our successes.  Stay tuned.

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