Marc Wheeler and Jessica Paris’ Coppa Cafe in downtown Juneau is the newest business to partner with the Juneau Carbon Offset Fund! While sustainability lies at the core of all the takes place at Coppa, Marc and Jessica realize that the full elimination of a carbon footprint is extremely challenging. This is especially true here in southeast Alaska where the barge and the jet are our lifelines to the rest of the country.
Coppa’s sustainability page states, “We believe that our choices as a business can have a positive impact on our community and our planet. We are committed to helping build social sustainability by lifting up all people in our community. And we consider our impact on the planet in all of our purchasing and other operations.” Marc and Jessica source local food when possible, power the majority of the business with hydro-generated electricity, compost just about everything possible (with the help of Juneau Composts), drive a Chevy Bolt electric car, and support numerous local charities.
Coppa will begin their carbon offset journey by taking into account the shipping of coffee beans from Seattle to Juneau. Sentinel Coffee supplies Coppa with 100% organic and locally-roasted coffee and will add a ten cent per pound charge to their deliveries. Sentinel Coffee offsets this impact with JCOF already and will add Coppa’s fees to the quarterly Sentinel offset payment. JCOF and Coppa are in the process of analyzing other shipping details and will have a more complete picture of Coppa’s carbon footprint once the numbers are crunched. For example, 13,163 pounds of ice cream supplies were shipped from Portland, Oregon to Juneau for Coppa’s magical frozen goodness! Sysco foods should be providing additional shipping weight information soon.
Coppa’s carbon offsetting coincides with the public display of Renewable Juneau board member Anjuli Grantham’s Solutionist project. For the month of March, Coppa will display a series of posters from this Project Drawdown-inspired climate action project. Anjuli interviewed ten local climate and energy activists and tells their stories and explains their projects and their passions in her informative and inspiring write ups.
“We have solutions to climate change. We are the solution to climate change.”
Anjuli Grantham
You can read about all ten solutionists on Anjuli’s website HERE. On March 1st, Anjuli spoke on KTOO’s ‘A Juneau Afternoon’ and she is the third speaker featured HERE. And, the Juneau Empire has been running the series each week. You can find the series HERE, or just search “climate” on the Empire’s home page.