Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ Sustainability Report an Ethical Business Success Story

By Leon Kaye

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) has been churning out cups of java for over three decades and has grown as a leading example of a sustainable business. The Vermont-based company, which employs 5,800 people and has annual sales approaching $4 billion, released its eighth annual sustainability report this week–and demonstrates the company’s commitment to the farthest reaches of its supply chain and the communities in which it operates.

Currently GMCR’s sustainability agenda rests on three pillars: supply chain, sustainable products and communities. The most recent sustainability report details the company’s successes and shortcomings during FY2012. While sales have surged, GMCR has worked closer with suppliers and expanded its offerings of sustainable coffee products. And while GMCR has a strong reputation for ethics and doing good in the communities in which it works, the company is doing things right internally as well with an employee retention rate of 90 percent.

Some of GMCR’s highlights from the past year include:

Fair trade expansion: The world’s largest supplier of fair trade certified coffee has led GMCR to fund a variety of farmer outreach projects across the globe. Last year GMCR invested $10.5 million in supply chain initiatives. And 20,000 families received increased food security as the result of GMCR’s various programs. The results have been a meteoric rise in the company’s purchase of coffee with ethical certifications from 2.9 million pounds in 2003 to 66.4 million pounds last year. And GMCR has launched a bevy of creative programs to instill better farming practices across the globe.

Click here to continue reading about GMCR's sustainability report highlights on Triple Pundit.

*This article originally appeared on triplepundit.com