Taking place once a year, National Vegetarian Week encourages the public to switch to a vegetarian diet for a week in order to reduce carbon emissions, protect endangered wildlife and increase awareness of the benefits and pleasures of a meat-free lifestyle.
As our beloved coffee beans are already vegetarian-friendly, you might be wondering what this has to do with Cafe2U. What you might not be aware of are the steps we've taken to reduce our impact on the environment so, inspired by National Vegetarian Week, we've decided to round-up some of the ways in which we've made our business as sustainable as possible.
Offering customers sustainable products
To help alleviate the problem of disposable coffee cups, we offer our customers reusable Keep Cups. It is estimated that over 600 billion disposable cups are used and discarded to landfill globally every year. By using long-lasting cups which are made from durable, environmentally friendly materials, we're helping reduce the number of paper cups being used by the coffee industry.
We've also stopped using disposable paper cups altogether and replaced them with fully compostable cups instead. As well as requiring less carbon to produce, compostable cups reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill and don't produce toxins when they break down, significantly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We've replaced all our plastic straws with biodegradable paper alternatives too.
Recycling
As well as offering a paper cup recycling scheme for customers who still use disposable cups, we've also launched a coffee grounds recycling initiative to counteract the 1.8 million tonnes of carbon emissions which are generated by the 500,000 tonnes of coffee waste disposed of in the UK every year. The initiative sees waste coffee grounds being recycled into bio-fuel pellets to power bio-mass boilers, significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Going digital
In the last few years, we started doing away with paper. All files at head office have now been completely digitised and we've done away with traditional loyalty cards and physical pamphlets in favour of an app which allows our customers to receive news, offers and updates digitally instead, massively reducing the amount of paper we use.
Our partners and suppliers
We recently switched to an ethical and sustainable sandwich manufacturer to increase the range of products available to our customers. Real Wrap Co is the first food-to-go manufacturer in the world to achieve certified carbon negative status, meaning it removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it generates. It does this by supplying sandwiches in sustainable packaging which is plastic-free, 100% recyclable and sends zero waste to landfill.
We also have a long-standing partnership with a multi-certified ethical coffee roaster which uses traditional harvesting methods and cultivates long term relationships with its producers, buying from them year after year and paying sustainable prices significantly higher than the Fair Trade minimum.
Our vans
The most important sustainable change we've made in the last few years has been to our fleet of nearly 100 vans. First, we replaced their diesel generators with lithium-ion batteries, immediately reducing our emissions from in-van generators to zero.
Then, in August 2021, we launched an all-new fleet of emission-free electric vehicles. By switching from petrol powered to electric vans, we expect to reduce our CO² emissions by a staggering 12,672g CO²/km per annum over time.
In addition to boasting zero emissions, the new vehicles are also silent, helping to combat noise pollution, and feature fewer moving parts and more effective brakes, meaning fewer replacement parts need manufacturing, reducing greenhouse gas emissions further still.
What plans do you have?
We're always looking for new ways to reduce our carbon footprint so we think National Vegetarian Week is a great idea and one we're firmly behind. If you're planning to go meat-free this week or have any other great sustainable ideas, let us know on our social media channels!