Utah Environmental Education Business of the Year

The Utah Environmental Education Business of the Year award is awarded to a for-profit organization that has made a major contribution to environmental education in Utah. This contribution may include but is not necessarily limited to directly educating the public, support for other EE initiatives, in-kind assistance, employee efforts and increasing environmental awareness to the broad community.

Caffe Ibis, this years’ winner, was nominated by the Stokes Nature Center, also located in Logan, Utah. Here’s what they had to say about Caffe Ibis and their contributions to the community!

“Caffe Ibis is a leader in environmental education (EE) masquerading as a coffee roasting house. Their contributions to EE are extensive and defy a succinct summary. Founded in 1967, Caffe Ibis is the leading producer of triple certified (organic, fair-trade, and Smithsonian bird-friendly) coffee. Dedicated to quality and consciousness they helped found the Café Femenino project, importing coffee from 67 disenfranchised women in Peru. Today Café Femenino includes more than 800 farmers exporting coffee around the world. For more than 11 years Caffe Ibis has subsidized their own coffee to ensure bird-friendly beans are affordable for customers already paying premiums on organic and fair-trade labels. Caffe Ibis has been recognized as “the most sustainable coffee in the world,” and is a regular presenter at sustainable business conferences around the county. Yet their downtown Logan café takes a low key approach to EE, posting handwritten notes like “If every country produced waste at US rates, we’d need 3-4 PLANETS” near the sorted recycling bins. In truth, Caffe Ibis pioneered recycling in Logan, accepting the community’s recyclables for collection before the city launched its own program. In 1982 they launched the Gardener’s Market to promote local produce, and are regular lecturers at Utah State University on alternative economic models and sustainable business. As a supporter of Stokes Nature Center they contribute 1/3 of bulk sales to our operations, and will soon help us launch an EE community outreach series on consumers and environmental stewardship.”