Being a sustainable farm, and promoting ourselves as such, we wanted to give greater transparency to and better communicate the work we do. We contracted Carbon Partners from California to do a carbon footprint analysis on the farm and resort.
The study was performed in November 2008 while the coffee processing season was in full force. Joe Selinger spent time with us identifying all the carbon dioxide producers and removals. The findings were very favorable and we learned much about how our operations affect the environment around the world.
To sum it up:
- We're responsible for the emission of 201.819 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- We offset our output with removal of 580 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- We have available 380 tonnes of credits.
To put this into perspective; the average American person is responsible for the emission of about 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. So, Selva Negra, all the people living in it (about 500) and all its operations including the eco lodge, the farm, all the coffee processing facilities, workers lodgings, clinic, school and the kitchens produces about the same carbon dioxide as 10 average American people.
How did we accomplish this?
CO2 Producers
Well, our productions are all organic and sustainable on many respects, including that they are performed in-house with local products, local people, self-generated power, and with very limited, if any waste.The greatest producer of CO2 was the use of our diesel vehicles, which generate 104.77 tonnes of CO2 annually, and 71.07 tonnes of CO2 through the use of electricity from the national grid. The rest is made up of smaller amounts including waste disposal and methane gas emissions.
CO2 Removals (Carbon Sinks)
Our absorptions or carbon sinks consist mainly of the shade cover throughout the coffee plantation, the eco lodge and the rainforest. Other interesting CO2 absorptions that we learned about were our fish pools. We have been experimenting with fish production and learned that our method of building shallow ponds for the fish were a great means of carbon removals.
We hope to get another carbon footprint analysis done in the future, since we're in the process of researching methods for reducing our already low footprint. These methods include:
- Converting to vehicles utilizing bio diesel that we hope to generate ourselves. We've already started the research on local plants that can supply a suitable diesel and started planting them to test our work.
- Wind or other alternate power source. We currently supply much of our own electricity utilizing our hydro power plant. But are looking into other ways of generating electricity in order to generate as much of our own power as possible. Our current research is focused on wind, but we are open to researching other methods.
- Greater fish productions, assuming our current set up ends up being productive, we will continue to expand.
If you're interested in seeing the report generated by Carbon Partners, or have any questions at all about our sustainable efforts, please don't hesitate to contact us at: karen@selvanegra.com
