What is ethical and sustainable coffee?
5 things I wish I knew before starting a coffee van business
22 March 2022
There is no question that we are consuming more coffee than ever before. In Australia alone, one in four people has admitted that they can’t survive without their cup of liquid gold each day. As one of the most sought after commodities in the world, there is rightly growing consciousness among coffee drinkers whether their daily caffeine fix is supporting ethical coffee and sustainable practices or is it contributing to the problem?
Coffee and its impact on the environment has not been a positive story. Deforestation to make way for coffee plantations, unfair working conditions for coffee farmers, and single use cups ending in landfill, are all examples of how the industry has contributed to the climate crisis.
Fortunately, there are moves globally towards ethical coffee production, minimising our carbon footprint as well as creating an industry that is more responsible. While one might think this is a job for large coffee producers and multinational coffee chains, however at Coffee Mentality, we believe as a small business, we can still make an impact to our part of the world and promote ‘sustainability’ through coffee as a platform for change.
To put this into action, we have appointed our first Sustainability Warden, Trisha to embed sustainability into everything we do across the business.
We have invited Trisha to write about her new role, why it’s needed and the actions a small coffee business can take to make an impact, and still meet its bottom line.
Meet our new Sustainability Warden – Trisha
I am very excited to help Coffee Mentality further centre its sustainability agenda. I see my role working towards finding innovative and realistic opportunities for our business to push towards a greener, more mindful and holistically sustainable business, and working with coffee!
With recent weather events felt close to home with the Brisbane floods early this year, climate change is again front of mind for many of us to reflect upon, as we think about how we can play our part to lessen the burden on the climate and the environment.
Our founder Ian Abadiano puts it beautifully; if in every building and business we are smart enough to have a fire warden — a person with a set of protocols in place to mitigate damage and can act if a building were to catch fire, then why don’t we not all similarly have a sustainability warden? A person whose responsibility it is to put in place actions and protocols to mitigate the damage and stress we place on our environment.
As our climate shifts, we are now faced with a challenge — how do we change our mentality and actions to lessen our carbon footprint, as individuals working in the coffee industry or coffee consumers?
“As a small specialty coffee business, we have taken a conscious decision to take it upon ourselves to think about and radically test ways we can change our lessen our environmental impact … and for us that comes down to assessing and understanding what ethical coffee and sustainability means for a small coffee roaster.”
Sustainability to us is our triple bottom line of People, Passion and Planet
To us here at Coffee Mentality – we see sustainability as an opportunity to promote our business values in People, Passion, and Planet, which underpins our mentality. This is about finding the synergy between these three elements that will guide our day to day operations to adopt sustainable and ethical coffee practices.
By adopting these values, we get to focus on the environmental and business practices that even for a small café, we can play our part in minimising our carbon emissions. These can be seen from choosing ethically-sourced green beans, to our home-grown initiatives around urban coffee planting and coffee education, to the fully compostable cups we serve in and our modes of recycling.
Beyond that, it is equally about our people
But just as importantly, we need to look at sustainability through the lens of the people and passion we have as an organisation. Sustainability means being able to create an environment in which our business can support its people to explore their skills, passions and talents and create a collective that is supportive of each others business, goals, and endeavours.
This is about creating a work environment that enables each person in the Coffee Mentality community to live and maintain a life that is healthy and sound physically, emotionally and mentally. It is also about maintaining and growing our business so that we can help create a better world one cup of coffee at a time. For a drink that is loved and adored, we see this as a medium to open up worlds of experiences and learning from different people from all walks of life, as we seek to better understand the people who make, drink and celebrate coffee.
How can you be part of this change?
We are always looking for ideas to further innovate our practices which we can share with the coffee community, so we can help create a more sustainable industry and planet. It is finding the balance between people, passion and planet that we will truly attain sustainability for everyone.
If you are thirsty for more inspiration on how to choose coffee that is ethically sourced and reduce waste – we invite you to our Coffee Tasting Experience offered at our East Brisbane store. A unique experience for anyone (not just coffee lovers) which will surely change your mentality on how coffee is grown, produced and consumed.
With increased awareness, I believe we can all drink our way to a greener and more ethical coffee.
ABOUT TRISHA
Trisha is one of our baristas at Coffee Mentality. Trisha spent nine years working as a minerals analyst after graduating from the University of Queensland with Honours class 1 in Geology. She now works in social entrepreneurship and impact strategy design when not exploring her interests in the performing arts. You can find Trisha working at the West End Markets at our Coffee Mentality van.
