Sustainability & Social Policy

Like many others we have won awards for our coffee and we hope you buy our coffee because you enjoy it,  but we feel great coffee is just not enough.

Sustainability

At current we are developing a strong sustainability policy that we believe is essential, here are some bullet points of where we are currently.

  • No fossil fuels are used in our roast process, others use gas and claim to be renewable through carbon offset schemes.
  • Renewable electric energy through a traceability scheme.
  • Recyclable bags, and  our 1kg bags are not imported from abroad they are made under 45 miles away, all other bags are sourced from the same company who are aiming to bring manufacturing as close to our doorstep, when possible. 
  • We pay above the UK based living wage to all our employees.
  • A range of Welsh Organic and Fairtrade certified products and other social projects, not just taking our word for it.
  • Monitoring our carbon foot print and taking action.
  • Maintaining where possible instead of replacing equipment.
  • We were one of the first in the uk to receive a Vortx clean air system in mid 2022 allowing us to reduce emissions without an afterburner.
  • Our website and office order systems are run with 100% renewable energy thanks to Oracle cloud.

Our  carbon footprint

We are currently in the process of trying to build a picture of the carbon we produce, our goal is always not to offset but to use an alternative where possible, this is why we use 100% renewable electricity to roast our coffee which is still a rarity in our industry, some claim to use renewables but actually use a carbon offset scheme.  Currently there are certain elements of our business that produce carbon, an example of this is the van we use to run local deliveries and make journeys to repair and maintain our customers coffee machines, currently we log its mileage and use the government based figures to calculate an approximate carbon footprint, last year this was approximately 3.6 tonnes.

There are many ways that we have seen people buy "carbon credits" and we don't believe that investing in a company that is simply planting trees is necessarily a positive way forward.  We understand no scheme is perfect but we have selected a charity that we believe is working hard in a positive direction within the UK, when speaking to them they assured us that all money contributed will be used for woodland projects within the UK, so this is why we have chosen to support the Woodland Trust.

Over the next year (2023 financial year) we are pledging to contribute to help them care for enough woodland to capture and store around 48 tonnes of carbon.

Based on our current understanding this is more carbon then we believe we produce in a year as a business, but we will be building a more complete picture of our footprint.

Where we are going

  • Working with more producers that use recognised schemes.
  • Trying to find ways to improve what we do or offset where we can't a goal to be carbon negative in the right way.
  • Look for further ways to improve.

Social

We believe that every human is equal, it saddens us that we have to make this statement. No one human is better than another. Nobody should in anyway show prejudice to another, based on skin colour, disability, nationality, sexuality or how you identify yourself. This is a core of how we run as a business and will not tolerate any form of prejudice from any of our employees or who we intentionally work with. If you have any issue with this we would rather you buy your coffee elsewhere. 

If you've got this far i've written this personally and I'm more than happy to discuss anything above with you.

Duncan, Head roaster and Managing Director.