Fair Trade at the Heart of Sustainability
True sustainability begins with farmers. That’s why we’ve committed to buying Fair Trade Certified™ coffee—a system that guarantees farmers a fairer, more stable price for their harvests while also generating an additional Fair Trade Premium. This premium doesn’t go to middlemen; it flows into the Fair Trade Community Development Fund, where farmer cooperatives decide democratically how to invest it. The results are visible in stronger communities: new schools, clean water systems, community kitchens, healthcare services, climate-smart farming tools, and more.
This matters because the global coffee supply chain is often inequitable. Farmers face:
Climate change: erratic weather patterns, crop disease, and rising temperatures that threaten yields
Market volatility: global price swings driven by speculation and demand fluctuations
Limited capital: barriers to financing new seedlings, tools, and farm inputs
Poor infrastructure: gaps in education, healthcare, transportation, and clean water in rural areas
Partnering with SGS for Climate Leadership
In 2025, BLK & Bold deepened its investment in sustainability by partnering with SGS, the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company—and one of the world's top ten most sustainable corporations. Social impact has been a defining strength of our B Corp profile, but climate was a muscle we hadn't developed to the same degree. Conversations with suppliers made it clear that climate change was already threatening the future availability of coffee, and that urgency drove us to act.
This matters because the global coffee supply chain is often inequitable. Farmers face:
Climate change: erratic weather patterns, crop disease, and rising temperatures that threaten yields
Market volatility: global price swings driven by speculation and demand fluctuations
Limited capital: barriers to financing new seedlings, tools, and farm inputs
Poor infrastructure: gaps in education, healthcare, transportation, and clean water in rural areas
Partnering with SGS for Climate Leadership
In 2025, BLK & Bold deepened its investment in sustainability by partnering with SGS, the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company—and one of the world's top ten most sustainable corporations. Social impact has been a defining strength of our B Corp profile, but climate was a muscle we hadn't developed to the same degree. Conversations with suppliers made it clear that climate change was already threatening the future availability of coffee, and that urgency drove us to act.
This matters because the global coffee supply chain is often inequitable. Farmers face:
Climate change: erratic weather patterns, crop disease, and rising temperatures that threaten yields
Market volatility: global price swings driven by speculation and demand fluctuations
Limited capital: barriers to financing new seedlings, tools, and farm inputs
Poor infrastructure: gaps in education, healthcare, transportation, and clean water in rural areas
Pernell Cezar, Co-founder & CEO
Rather than lead with claims, we chose to lead with rigor, and to work with a partner whose core work is making sure the math holds up. With SGS, we're now building the systems, training, and accountability measures needed to strengthen our environmental performance from farm to cup, bringing greater transparency, circularity, and resilience to coffee as a category.
SGS's Sustainability Assurance team is serving as our training and advisory partner to help us build the right foundation: training our team, collecting data, and mapping a multi-year plan that we'll execute and report on openly. Because independence is core to assurance, SGS will not verify the specific climate calculations they help us develop; when we're ready for verification, a separate third party will conduct it. This separation preserves the credibility and comparability of our future disclosures.
Our first priority is transparency. With SGS, we began measuring our full carbon footprint, training our team in carbon accounting, and identifying opportunities to reduce emissions. Our first baseline assessment shows that BLK & Bold generated 4,039 metric tons of CO₂e:
- Direct emissions (scope 1): 73
- Purchased energy (scope 2): 17
- Supply chain emissions (scope 3): 3,949 (≈ 98% of total)
- Packaging materials: 77%
- Coffee beans (agriculture + processing): 11%
- Transportation (freight, logistics): 8%
Because scope 3 emissions rely heavily on estimates at the outset, SGS is helping us improve accuracy by engaging suppliers directly. Over the coming year, we’re working with coffee growers, packaging partners, and haulers to collect more primary data so that our baseline, year-two inventory, and trends over time reflect our actual footprint more precisely. These stakeholder conversations are as important as the calculations themselves, helping us identify the areas of greatest impact and opportunity.
Guided by SGS, we're focusing first where impact is greatest:
- Coffee bean sourcing: Evaluating origin countries and cultivation methods (e.g., drought-resistant varietals in Peru) and beginning to track emissions by origin and farming practice. As we do this, we're committed to a just transition: making climate-smart choices while strengthening, not abandoning, smallholder partners.
- Packaging materials: Exploring compostable and recyclable films, piloting refill concepts at HQ, and continuing to use recyclable aluminum cans for cold brew. Redesign priorities include bag films, RTD secondary packaging, and shipper cartons. Progress will be measured by reduced material weight, recyclability, and oxygen-barrier performance.
- Truck haulers & transportation: Consolidating freight, optimizing pallet configurations, and aligning production calendars to minimize “hot shot” shipments. For long routes, rail is under consideration, and we are exploring partnerships with carriers testing EV and low-emission trucking.
- Roasters & operational efficiency: Implementing energy-efficient roasting equipment, LED facility upgrades, and preventative maintenance to reduce waste. Water is used primarily in cleaning cycles; SOPs already minimize waste, and upgrades like CIP-style systems and reclaim options are being evaluated.
- Renewable energy: Tracking our facility's energy mix and evaluating renewable sourcing options or high-quality offsets as a bridge where appropriate. Proposed goals include a 30–50% Scope 2 reduction by 2030.
In addition, the roastery is piloting waste-reduction and recycling programs—capturing chaff for disposal, recycling cardboard and plastic, and reducing packaging scrap. Water meters and baselines are being established to support future reduction targets.
Our four-part docuseries, BLK & Bold: A Journey Rooted in Coffee, Community, and Climate, chronicles the early steps of this work. Filmed in part in San Ignacio, Peru—a community where 95% of residents depend on coffee—the series underscores what's at stake. Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns affect yields, quality, and livelihoods.
We’ll continue to document and share our climate journey because we believe that radically transparent storytelling builds trust. We'll all discover the numbers together—good, bad, or otherwise—and use them as a foundation for action.
Insights gleaned from our measurement work will form the basis of our first environmental KPIs, which we will track year over year. This work ladders into a climate action plan aligned with science-based targets: sharpening the baseline with primary data, setting interim reduction milestones (e.g., 50% reduction by 2030), and mapping our decarbonization pathway to net zero by 2050.
Parallel tracks include supplier engagement, EcoVadis training to meet buyer requests, and deeper analysis across coffee, packaging, and logistics. As data quality improves, we will publish updates and pursue independent assurance of our reported results. Certifications such as Climate Neutral and Organic are also being evaluated for select SKUs.
To engage stakeholders, BLK & Bold is launching employee Green Team projects, providing customers with brew guides featuring sustainability tips, and collaborating with retailers on in-aisle recycling education and impact storytelling. Progress will be communicated through packaging labels, QR codes to an impact microsite, social media storytelling, and annual impact reports.
As a certified B Corp, we also asked SGS to conduct a gap analysis between our prior B Impact Assessment performance and B Lab's evolving certification framework. Some of the new requirements may have structural implications—particularly in states like Iowa where benefit corporation statutes exist. We're working with our legal and accounting advisors now to determine the right path.
Nearly a third of the top 100 food and beverage companies in North America have yet to put in place top-down sustainability governance. By embedding governance and accountability now, we're making a choice that reflects our mission as a B Corp and our responsibility as a brand grounded in purpose.
A key learning from this process: who we work with—farmers, suppliers, logistics partners—will define our trajectory. We’re choosing collaborators who share our commitment to data quality, equity, and climate leadership.
Regardless of the certification framework we ultimately use—B Corp, EcoVadis, or complementary ratings—BLK & Bold aims to set a credible example for mid-sized food and beverage companies across North America: start with transparency, invest in data quality, engage suppliers, and publish progress. Our commitment is firm: to raise our environmental performance year over year and, ultimately, to achieve the highest B Corp score of any coffee company in the world, backed by numbers we can stand behind.
our Governance
Nearly a third of the top 100 food and beverage companies in North America have yet to put in place top-down sustainability governance. By embedding governance and accountability now, we're making a choice that reflects our mission as a B Corp and our responsibility as a brand grounded in purpose.
A key learning from this process: who we work with—farmers, suppliers, logistics partners—will define our trajectory. We’re choosing collaborators who share our commitment to data quality, equity, and climate leadership.
Regardless of the certification framework we ultimately use—B Corp, EcoVadis, or complementary ratings—BLK & Bold aims to set a credible example for mid-sized food and beverage companies across North America: start with transparency, invest in data quality, engage suppliers, and publish progress. Our commitment is firm: to raise our environmental performance year over year and, ultimately, to achieve the highest B Corp score of any coffee company in the world, backed by numbers we can stand behind.
Our B Corp Environmental Score
As a Certified B Corporation, BLK & Bold is measured across five impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers. In our most recent assessment, we scored 5.7 points in Environment out of a possible ~40. While modest, this score is typical for small-to-mid sized coffee companies, where most emissions occur upstream in farming and packaging, outside of direct control.
- Environmental Management: 2.7
- Air & Climate: 0.8
- Water: 0.5
- Land & Life: 1.5
These results reflect where we were: a lean roastery with ethical sourcing practices, but without fully formalized systems for tracking and improving our environmental footprint. They also clarify where we’re going. With the SGS partnership, we’re now building the accountability systems that will allow us to improve in every one of these sub-categories.
Our overall B Corp certification of 99.1 points demonstrates strength in Governance, Workers, and Community. Raising our Environment score is the next frontier. Our goal is to turn this modest baseline into leadership, proving that specialty coffee can grow with accountability and care for the planet.
In 2025, BLK & Bold deepened its investment in sustainability by partnering with SGS, the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company—and one of the world's top ten most sustainable corporations. Social impact has been a defining strength of our B Corp profile, but climate was a muscle we hadn't developed to the same degree. Conversations with suppliers made it clear that climate change was already threatening the future availability of coffee, and that urgency drove us to act.
