VillageCoco Charcoal

VillageCoco Charcoal was my attempt at a for-profit FairTrade certified business based in Palawan Island, the Philippines. VillageCoco Charcoal's mission was to improve the social and economic well-being of our suppliers, mostly small scale, Filipino coconut farmers, their families and communities based in Palawan Island, the Philippines. The project was focused on purchasing coconut shell charcoal from impoverished coconut farmers, processing it into BBQ charcoal briquettes and selling it to existing consumer brands in Australia & North America. We fulfilled 90% of FairTrade’s FLO Certification criteria so that our coconut charcoal would be the 1st FairTrade-certified charcoal product in the world. I funded and supported the development of the Palawan Fair Trade Coconut Association. Within two years we achieved 500 members, representing 130,000 coconut palms and 3000 odd family dependents. We were the largest farmer Association on Palawan Island in 2012. In November, 2012 I decided to close the project due to a number of reasons including corruption, excessive red tape and poor logistics infrastructure.