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FIRST A PAT on the collective back: Business has come a long way toward the incorporation of sustainable practices into mainstream behavior. Consider the fact that large companies like Walmart and McDonald's have made great strides toward more responsible practices because they are looking at their supply chains through a long-term lens, and see the need to make improvements. Walmart's strength and influence alone encouraged a universal reduction in the size of laundry detergents, for example. And McDonald's has put forth sustainability requirements for many parts of their supply chain, from cattle to coffee. That is really good stuff and should be considered a significant degree of success when you look at the staggering amount of consumption they are ensuring has a less negative impact. So progress has been made: Many concepts related to corporate, social, and environmental responsibility were perceived as foreign and fringe fewer than 10 years ago, and they are not now. Today, an increasing number of informed businesses are becoming aware of how important it is to our planet and our businesses for us to adopt more responsible practices. We must welcome those changes, and we need to always be on the lookout for more ways to modify our behaviors and minimize the negative impacts of our actions. Many of us who work with coffee see and experience how our changing climate continues to introduce challenges into our supply chain for beans, and we subsequently feel a sense of urgency about doing our part to ensure responsible business behaviors are an integral part of who we are and what we do. Until a few years ago, the closest a café owner on the hunt for information about how to adopt sustainable practices in a coffeehouse could get was through restaurant associations, that offered some great tips. Café owners, however, were left with the disconnect that comes with practices designed for folks running businesses four times the size of a café, and dealing with energy uses associated with large-scale kitchen equipment. Thankfully, Kristin Henninger, a Northern Californian trained in environmental education, identified the gap in sustainable practices for café owners, and in 2006, Henninger began research into what it would take to open a truly "green' café." "[But] after I interviewed many café owners, I found that although many were interested in running their café as a green business, they often felt there wasn't enough information out there, or that it was too expensive and they wished there was someone to turn to for guidance and/or resources," says Henninger. "That's when I realized there was potential for having a greater impact creating that resource, and not only helping one café 'go green,' but inspiring dozens of cafés—even hundreds of cafés—and spurring a movement that could really move the industry toward more sustainable practices." In 2007, Henninger launched the nonprofit Green Café Network (GCN) as a pilot project with a few coffee shops in San Francisco's Mission District. The Green Café Network provides technical assistance, training, and resources to help cafés reduce waste, conserve energy and water, save money, and inspire their communities. "We do this in two main ways: first as consultants, working with café operators individually to meet their green business goals by helping them identify ways to conserve energy, divert waste from the landfill, train employees on green practices, etc.," says Henninger. "Secondly, we run a network of cafés that are committed to operating green businesses, where member cafés can share best practices, get helpful tips from GCN and take advantage of discounts with partner venders. "We also organize workshops and webinars for café operators about practical steps they can take to lower their café's impact on the planet. Many of these are open to the public. This is part of our work to keep growing a movement toward sustainability in this industry, and thankfully, more and more people in all sectors of the coffee industry are jumping on board with that." Rebecca Giovanetti of Danville, Calif., was a barista when she first met Henninger at an early GCN orientation at Coffee to the People in San Francisco. She recalls feeling a sudden confidence in being able to bring the conservation efforts she had practiced as a teenage wilderness instructor into a city setting: "I learned from the Green Café Network that no matter how urban our setting, we can do plenty in our work toward sustainability and green practices, especially in a café—from the products we choose, to the way we run the shop in terms of energy and water conservation. It's funny, I didn't used to think cafés had much hope at all of being 'green.' Now, I know the options are limitless." More Resources, and a New Bottom Line Henninger's efforts were among those that • If each of the 20,000 cafés in the United States replaced only one incandescent light bulb with a CFL or LED, we could avoid over 7.9 million pounds of CO2 emissions each year (the equivalent of taking 706 pas- senger vehicles off the road for one year), while saving the industry a total of $677,800. • In general, replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) or light emitting diode (LED) saves about 250 pounds of CO2 annually. • Lighting upgrades are relatively straightforward and are a good bang for your buck, generally offering a payback period of around two years. Lighting retrofits are more affordable than replacing some of the cooking, refrigeration, sanitation equipment, or heating, ventilation and air-condition- ing (HVAC) equipment in your café. Source: Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Green Guide. www.baristamagazine.com 69