Our Sustainability Statement

We all know the challenges we now face to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. At Devon Coffee Co, we have made Three Sustainability Pledges to ensure we operate with a positive environmental and social impact. These pledges are; To Give back to the Planet, To Source Sustainably, and To Cut Pollution.

Below is a list of changes we have made so far and changes we are planning for the future.....

TO GIVE BACK TO THE PLANET

We donate at least 1% of our sales to non profits that are working to repair the environmental and social damage caused by human impact. '1% for the Planet' vet these organisations and certify our donations.

1% for the Planet

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1% of every purchase goes towards the planet.

Currently we are supporting:

Devon Wildlife Trust

www.devonwildlifetrust.org

Food 4 Farmers

Devon Environment Foundation

Devon Environment Foundation protects and restores nature in Devon by funding local nature-based solutions.

Nature-based solutions provide an inspiring and cost-effective way to tackle the climate and nature crises: sequestering carbon; increasing biodiversity; preventing flooding, droughts, and soil erosion; reducing and cleaning up pollution; and offering more opportunities to connect with nature.

DEF specialises in identifying the most innovative and impactful grassroots nature-based solutions, providing vital kick-start or scale-up support, and showcasing successes to ignite hope and wider action.

TO SOURCE SUSTAINABLY

Supply Chains

We now actively seek out and source goods from suppliers with their own policies for operating sustainably. We started with coffee but didn't stop there and have plans to build new relationships and work with current suppliers to ensure that our extended environmental and social impact is a positive one.

Coffee

Although we are not yet certified as an Organic trader (application process has started), we are now sourcing coffee from farms and Co-ops that are either certified Organic, Rain Forrest Alliance or have demonstrated their own sustainable agricultural practices. From the beginning of 2022 all of our coffees will comply with our sustainability pledge. You can read about our coffees here.

Oat Milk

2021 saw us strike up a new partnership with Rebel Kitchen as we became a distributor of their Organic Barista Mylk, giving our customers a sustainable alternative to dairy. Rebel Kitchen are a BCorp, Carbon Neutral and fellow members of 1% for the Planet.

Barista Mylk was created alongside world-renowned Coffee Expert James Hoffmann. It’s the only plant based alternative that tastes and works like dairy milk and is the perfect choice for lasting latte art with it’s silky texture and tight microfoam.

Coffee Machines

In 2020 we began working with Ascaso and offering their Barista T range of espresso machines due to their new energy efficient technology and excellent performance.

"At Ascaso, our team of engineers has spent years working to differentiate and perfect our espresso coffee machines. And this has led us to reappraise our approach to tradition. To ground our projects on sustainable engineering." 

"One of the T technology’s key goals was to reduce the machine’s energy consumption. We deliver a 50% average saving compared with a traditional machine and 25% compared with other multiboiler machines."

You can read more here

TO CUT POLLUTION

Vehicles

We have begun our transition to a full electric fleet of vehicles with local coffee shops now receiving zero emission deliveries from our new Maxus 100% electric van. The next step is to electrify our customer support vehicle which we hope to achieve by early 2022.

Roaster

Our second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is our coffee roaster. The industry has always failed to manufacture a roaster with the capacity and performance to suit the needs of an artisan micro roaster..... until now! We have demo'd the new Typhoon 20kg electric roaster via zoom with the next step of testing it in person not too far away. We are very excited about this move which would give us the possibility of completely electrifying our business from roasting through to delivery.

Renewable energy

A key to making our whole operation sustainable is using a renewable electricity supplier - all of electricity is supplied by E.on Next and is 100% renewable. Once we have electrified our coffee roaster we will disconnect our gas supply and complete the electrification of our entire business.

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Take away cups

In 2019-2020 we sold a disposable cup that was fully paper recyclable and compostable (the first of its kind) but, after a tricky time over the pandemic, it appears the UK manufacturer we used will no longer be able to produce our cup. The material is available to other manufacturers in the UK so we will update this pledge as soon as we have the cup in production.

Packaging

Coffee & tea packaging has always been trick​​​​​​​y to find a sustainable solution for as it involves so many variables including local waste infrastructure, where it is manufactured, what materials are used and its suitability to hold a food product for a period of time. With research finding that only 9% of plastic is actually recycled, we decided to use compostable packaging as the waste infrastructure is currently available. All of our packaging complies with the EU compostable standard EN 13432, which means that if disposed of correctly the packaging will break down and not become a pollutant. Below is a list of our different types of packaging and where it can be disposed...