Sustainability At Two Chimps Coffee
No razzmatazz. No greenwashing. Just the best sustainable coffee for your cup.
Coffee from good people
We know sustainability needs to be a priority. It’s not an option. With average global temperatures continuing to rise and plastic still a major problem, we believe that all businesses have a responsibility to put the planet at the top of their list.
And the planet gives us our coffee, so why would we not want to show it some love? Rather a lot of love, in fact. Over the past few years, we’ve taken major steps in our mission to bring sustainable, ethical coffee to your mug. Keep reading for everything you need to know about TC’s sustainability values – it’s all green ‘n’ good!
We’re climate positive and loving it!
Our commitment to being carbon-neutral informs every aspect of our business, from packaging and partnerships to purchasing only renewable electricity. We’re proud to play our part in combatting climate change and securing a sustainable future for generations to come.
Green hosted website
Google might seem like something that just… happens, but every website search uses energy. The average web page uses 6.8g of carbon dioxide every time it loads. All-singing, all-dancing sites with lots of features use more. 6.8g might not seem like much, especially when compared to all the tonnes and billions we were chatting about before, but let’s put it into context. There are two billion computers in the world. And we humans tap in 40,000 Google searches every single second. So 6.8g soon adds up…
Why does this matter? Well, the data for every website takes up space in one of the data centres located around the world. Data centres are mammoth towers packed with servers, and each site has its own little ‘room’ in the tower. As you can probably guess, these high-tech empires use huge amounts of energy – around 1% of the global electricity supply, believe it or not.
We chimps like to keep things green from all angles, so we decided to make our website green hosted. This means that sustainable power sources fuel our website’s server. Sustainable data centres also work to offset their carbon emissions and develop natural cooling methods which don’t gobble up fossil fuels.
So browse our site and click away happy, dear friends!
Ethical coffee from eco-friendly coffee importers
As much as we’d love to, we can’t go out to coffee-growing countries each time we source new speciality beans. That’s why we partner with trusted, ethical coffee importers instead.
Ethical coffee importers see sustainability as a prime concern and work tirelessly to bring us beans in planet-kind ways. The small handful of speciality coffee importers we buy from all reduce their carbon footprint in various ways. They might run carbon neutral offices, or support reforestation work in coffee-growing countries.
Olam Specialty Coffee is also working to make washed-processed coffees more sustainable. This method produces a fair amount of waste water, which can contaminate local habitats and water supplies. Rather than allowing the washed process water to pollute nearby areas, Olam importers are developing new, effective and economically functional solutions.
Packing coffee in planet-kind bags
Foil-lined zipper bags are great at keeping coffee fresh. They’re just not great for the planet. The mix of materials (aluminium lining and plastic exterior) poses problems at the recycling plant and can cause loads to be marked as contaminated. The alternative? Recyclable coffee bags made from one material!
Our 250g and 500g coffee packaging is all made from fully recyclable low-density polythene (LDPE). Simply swill out after use and recycle in your standard home recycling. If your local council has specific regulations, you can recycle your Two Chimps coffee bag along with bread bags and carrier bags at the supermarket. The stickers are recyclable, too, so you don’t need to worry about piggling them off. And see the metal clips? No? Ahh, well that’s because we did away with them a while back. You’ll find eco-friendly glue dots on all our coffee bags now.
But don’t worry, we’ve not put coffee freshness in the corner. That’s still No. 1. Flip your coffee bag over and you’ll see a one-way freshness valve. This clever (recyclable) tool allows gasses to escape, keeping your coffee beautifully fresh! What’s more, the matt black finish gets top marks for freshness. Coffee doesn’t like light, making opaque black bags the best choice. And it just so happens that they’re super stylish, too…
The small things
Here at the treehouse, we’re always taking a waste not, want not approach. No matter how big or small, we give something a second life if we can. Take the high-strength PE bags used to keep our coffee beans safe during their travels; we give them to a wedding chair company that uses them to protect their stored furniture. Cardboard boxes never go to waste either, as we use them to deliver our wholesale coffee orders.
Handmade upcycled tote bags are great if you want another way to get coffee into your life. Made from our prettiest coffee sacks and lined with haberdashery offcuts, these chic bags have, well, bags of style.
It might not be as trendy, but did you know that we even use the backs of our A4 sticker sheets for printing paper and jot-it-down-quick paper. Ideal for those brainwave moments…
What’s next?
We know there’s always more to do. We’re doing a mighty fine job, but we never say we’ve ticked the sustainability box – we’re always looking for ways to improve.
