Reduce your ecological footprint, one coffee at a time
Many entrepreneurs will tell you that it is important to pass your values through the orientation of your projects. For several years, Faro has been trying to pass its values through many small actions, which we believe can make a difference for many things. We believe that there is always a way to take meaningful action as an SME and to encourage the largest companies to do the same.
Today, and more than ever, the environmental issue is becoming an imperative in all areas. Now that we have the resources to get the project off the ground, we have made the decision to take this issue further and to integrate sustainable development into our practices.
What are our goals?
Making the right environmental move may seem simple, but as novices in the field of sustainable development, we needed help and advices. It is for this reason that we have used the expertise of the ADDERE organization to make these changes happen.
Here are the objectives we have set for the next few years;
1- Change our coffee cups for BPI certified compostable cups, now available in all our branches;
2- Reduce the amount of waste from our roasting center by 2020;
3- Limit coffee purchases from Africa and Asia to less than 15% by 2021;
4- Reduce the fuel consumption of our vehicles by 40% by 2023 with new hybrid or 100% electric vehicles.
Going green, not as easy as you might think
Through our efforts, we encountered some difficulties that did not make the task easy. The major challenge of such change, which applies to all levels of environmental decision-making, is to make the right choice among all the possible opportunities.
Coffee bags
When it came time to choose a 100% recyclable option from our coffee bags, we discovered a rather gray area of the green bin. Will our customers have the right way so that the sorting centers are able to recycle them? Will the freshness of the coffee be optimal? Presumably, the best option will always be reusable containers.
Organic matter management
About organic matter, how should we manage it? Compost may seem like the perfect choice for many things, but for coffee parchment, it's a whole other solution, as ingenious as it is effective, that stands out: the valorization of the matter with a partner. From a social and economic point of view, coffee parchment has a great potential to exploit and can have multiple functions, be it the amendment of land by the farmers or insulation / mulching for the animals!
This is also the case of jute bags that can be used to preserve lake ecosystems by controlling watermilfoil, an invasive aquatic plant that grows exponentially when cut. Nevertheless, some of these bags are treated with synthetic materials for their preservation, so we must push a little bit further our thoughts to manage them properly.
There will always be a lot that needs to be done, but we hope that these changes, as small as they are, can inspire you, as many others, to make changes in your daily life to help fight climate change.
