In the remote Eastern highlands of Guatemala, the tall mountain range of the Cerro San Gil hugs the mystical Rio Dulce and extends its lush jungle right into the Caribbean sea. Despite this romantic beauty, however, it is also an area facing severe ecological and social challenges. Deforestation, poverty, physical isolation and exploitation by middle men (they call them coyotes here) all pose a daily threat to the livelihoods of the thousands of indigenous families that have called these lands home for centuries.

In 2013, Firmenich became an investor of the Livelihoods Carbon Fund with partners including Hermès, Danone, SAP, Michelin and others. The fund invests in projects across seven countries spanning from agroforestry, rural energy and ecosystem restoration, usually during a period of 3 to 4 years, and then co-manages the projects with local partners for up to 20 years in order to ensure that the effects are made to last and enhance communities’ livelihoods. This innovative financing platform, instead of offering a financial return to its investors, enables them to offset their carbon emissions and over the past three years have replanted over 120 million trees.

One such plantation project is based in Guatemala, and is operated by the national conservation NGO Fundaeco. The partners started to plant trees in Cerro San Gil region and discovered that the local communities where also collecting cardamom.

One of the world’s most ancient spices originating from India, the plant’s small, brown-black sticky seeds emit a warm and aromatic flavour which are used across the industry from fine fragrance to aromatherapy and flavours. Nelixia, our supplier in Guatemala, expressed an interest in sourcing from these local communities to help bring them a regular, stable income. The new partnership between Firmenich, Livelihoods Ventures, Nelixia and Fundaeco emerged from these dynamics, as partners who share similar values and complementary skills. Since the project began, Livelihoods has expanded their investment to over 2400 hectares of forest, which amounts to replanting 1.7million trees and non-tree crops; they plan to grow this to 3.5 million trees over five years, in turn contributing to Firmenich’s commitment to become carbon zero by 2020.

As we headed towards the cardamom, corn, pineapple and rubber tree plantations, over seven hours drive of meandering jagged paths that snake through the region’s mountains and pass through dense jungle, desert landscapes and precipitous cliffs, it struck me that this indeed was an area that was very, very far away. The essential need of partnering up with a local player such as Fundaeco became overwhelmingly apparent – they are the people who are in daily, constant contact with the farmers. They know each one by name, who their families are, what their real problems are; they have their trust, listen to their words, supply them with working capital, open clinics for their women, and provide income systems so that they can protect and replant trees instead of cutting them down, and learn to farm sustainable crops as substitutes. This empowers the locals, instead of forming yet another dependent link in the chain.

Nelixia also integrates this 360º approach in their cardamom factory, located near Antigua Guatemala. They’ve developed their own closed water circuit, cleaning and cooling the water which flows up from deep within the earth and distils the raw cardamom as it passes through vapour chambers. Their waste products are then processed by a biodigestor and used to generate gas that powers the factory and creates fertilizer for geranium, melissa, and other olfactory plants that will also be processed by Nelixia. The lab assistant who  used to be the cleaning lady has been empowered to develop her skills and become proud of her new role; the workers are all from the surrounding villages. Preparing cardamom for our industry is a process that can never be industrialised, as each batch that comes in is different, depending on minute changes in weather conditions at harvest. This is truly working with nature.

Imagine a scene. It’s dawn, and the thick mist that coats the jungle overnight is slowly lifting. You slip on your thin leather sandals, sling some tattered bags over your back, and head out the door. From here, it’s a long trip on one of Guatemala’s infamous “chicken buses” (vividly painted, crammed public buses that tear dangerously along the country’s highways); a particularly large rock in the scarred road makes the whole bus lurch and almost tip over. It’s humid, steaming hot, and the real sun hasn’t even come out yet. A few hours later, the rain has set in and you’re sloping your way up a steep muddy hill to arrive to the cardamom fields. The whole day, your fingers weave and pick, collecting the firm green pods that gush out from the bottom of the tall stalks overhead. Each plant can give 1kg, maybe 1.5kg per year, of green grains if you’re lucky. Time arduously ticks by. Night is almost falling now, and you wait by the side of the road for one of the local coyotes to drive by and purchase your day’s work. You know he is short-selling you. You have no choice. You still sell to him, because no one else will buy it if not, and you need to eat, and you need to get home. And tomorrow, you will begin again.

Fast forward a few months. A woman is sitting in a café (this could be any café – in Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, New York, Sao Paolo) and she orders her regular morning coffee, a strong roast blended with cardamom. She closes her eyes and savours how the sharp, eucalyptine flavour silkenly blends in with the dark coffee. And she suddenly realises that she doesn’t really know what cardamom is, or even where it comes from.

Fruits, spices, scents, flavours, plants – our planet’s produce has never been more accessible than it is today. We can find and buy at any place, at any time, anywhere. Despite some obvious advantages, this accessibility comes with a sombre truth. We are fundamentally separated from how and where things are sourced. We do not realise, often, how many people and processes have been implicated and involved for products to grow, how many pairs of hands have toiled and laboured, how deep a value chain really goes, in order for us to be able to enjoy what arrives on our doorsteps. And if we don’t really know, it naturally becomes quite hard for us to gage the value and appreciate the complexity and beauty behind our every day joys. There’s a reason why cardamom is nicknamed the “epice d’or” (golden spice) – for all the work that goes into it. And it’s perhaps through being more aware, that we might be willing to pay a little extra for what we consume, knowing that it will go into the pockets of that tired farmer who is now riding the long bus home.