As living beings on this earth, we ought to have a responsibility to protect the earth, the home that we are living in. We could do so much to help the earth and live in a sustainable way. Similarly, the coffee business could contribute to lessening the carbon footprint as well. It is not hard to do. As coffee shop owners we can do so much to contribute to the environment and transform the coffee shop into a sustainable business.
In this article, we are going to present to you ideas on how to be an eco-friendly coffee shop. Nowadays environmental activists are advocating for a better, greener, and long-lasting world. Therefore, as a citizen, we ought to be protecting this home for the future generations. Moreover, it is widely popular to practice these green lifestyles anyway. It is not that HARD! Trust me!
And as a head start, these ideas are easy, effective, and environmentally conscious for all coffee shop owners to practice. With all of these initiatives, you can also influence your local community to be environmentally friendly in the same manner. I am sure that customers and the locals are going to love your implementation.
Contents
Electric Receipts
Do you know that your receipts are harmful to the environment? And they are especially used in the coffee industry. Whenever coffee drinkers finish their orders, coffee and receipts are handed to them. These receipts are evidence of your order however they are harmful and we can find alternatives to replace these physical receipts.
Why are they so harmful? They contained harmful BPA chemicals on the shiny and white papers. When touched on a daily basis, the chemical most likely will affect hormones and heart diseases. And you cannot recycle it. That means the white tiny paper has a negative environmental impact on the earth. Moreover, they can cause various health problems in the future as well.
Not to mention that these papers are made of trees. Therefore, deforestation will happen in order to produce these receipts. All in all, they shredded bad environmental effects.
Alternatively, we can change from using conventional receipts to paperless or electrical receipts. Have you ever seen receipts being sent to your email or to your phone? Exactly, this is what I am referring to. It is convenient for the customers because the majority of them won’t be needing it anyway. Furthermore, café owners can cut down on expenses. With this option, you can encourage your customers to be aware of the environmental effects that receipts cause and encourage other industries to be environmentally conscious too.
No To Single-Used Plastic
In order to transform into a sustainable coffee shop, coffee shop owners must be aware of single plastic. For instance, plastic coffee cups and plastic straws are just extreme waste for the environment. One of the prominent items around the coffee shops is disposable cups. Most of them are nonrecyclable cups. Even the takeaway coffee cups are disposable as well. They were created for convenience. Additionally, plastic straws are one of the hazardous materials out there. Plastic straws and plastic bottles are widely popular as well. Customers would only need it for convenience for a brief period of time and they would disregard it entirely after using it. These single-use plastics will deteriorate the environment and contribute to carbon emissions and climate change.
The solution for this is to encourage customers to seek greener alternatives and cut plastic usage in the coffee shop. Firstly, coffee shop owners can transform their coffee shop into an eco-friendly shop by using non-plastic cups such as compostable cups, paper straws, paper cups, or even encourage customers who own reusable cups to bring to drink their coffee.
The deadliest is the plastic straws. We are a step closer to being a sustainable coffee shop if you encourage your customers to drink with eco-friendly straws that are made of paper or rice straws. Plastic straws cannot be recycled or re-used. They ended up in the landfill and some of the plastic straws ended up in the ocean as well. Therefore, stop using these plastic straws and find other alternatives to replace them.
Furthermore, by using reusable cups or paper cups, we are taking a big step to decrease single-use plastic in the coffee shop’s daily routine. You can find the best reusable coffee cups in the market that could sustain both cold and hot drinks. Furthermore, we are one step closer to decreasing carbon emissions resulting from single-used waste.
Secondly, after replacing plastic products with eco-friendly products, coffee shop owners can also apply this method to takeaway coffee, takeaway cups, or takeaway food. Coffee shop owners can use biodegradable packaging to wrap their drinks or food items. You can throw away plastic wrappings for food or drinks. Instead, replace them with biodegradable boxes that you can use to hold the food together. These boxes are made of paper and can be recycled.
Electricity and Water Efficiency
Another method to transform into an eco-friendly coffee shop is to adopt energy-saving features in the cafe. Energy efficiency is the best policy in order to curb carbon emissions and become sustainable. What coffee shops can apply is to decrease energy usage from machines, electricity, and water usage. Therefore, it will save a ton of energy and resources from going to waste.
First, a sustainable coffee shop must have an eco-friendly inventory. This means coffee shop owners can decide to look for low-energy use machines inside the shop. For example, you can turn toward using eco-friendly espresso machines. By using greener coffee machines, you can cut down your carbon footprint and lessen down your electricity bills. Otherwise, you can lessen the air conditioning system by incorporating natural air. This way it will bring fresh air into the coffee shop while decreasing the environmental impact.
Alternatively, you can seek energy-efficient light bulbs. There are lightings in the market created to consume less energy. Additionally, you can incorporate lights in the coffee shop by using our natural lights. That is mother nature in its finest form. All you have to do is construct huge windows to give permission for the lights to enter. This option is very popular nowadays because it is attractive in design and permits the lights to enter for your customers overall.
Moreover, coffee shops can start using their water properly. Usually, we tend to waste our tap water on cleaning or washing. Sometimes, we take it for granted and use it recklessly. However, it is unavoidable because coffee shops need to be hygienic. Therefore, washing and cleaning are mandatory. However, to save water we can recycle the AC water for our use. Because AC water is regular water. You don’t have to worry about having more chemicals in the water. It is safe.
Food Waste
This topic is popular. And if you want to be an eco-friendly coffee shop then stop wasting food. Sometimes, you eat and throw away the leftovers even though the food could be kept and eaten later on. We often see this problem happen within the customer base. It is a waste to throw away food while there are many people out there begging and asking for food.
To stop food waste, like coffee shops owners you must set a policy to consume sustainable food. Sustainable food is foods that are organic and provide healthy options to consumers, economic, social, and the environment itself. By buying this organic food, even if it goes to waste it is not that exacerbating for the environment negatively. Plus, you are helping the local produce or the local area that planted vegetables themselves. You are making a change and creating markets for them while satisfying your customers with fresh and organic produce. This way you are actually being environmentally conscious about your shop, environment, and ecosystem.
Secondly, you can choose to buy less food. Food waste occurs frequently in the refrigerator. Sometimes, we bought food, vegetables, or meat excessively. We did not keep track of our grocery shopping. Therefore, when it is too much and kept for a longer period of time, it will spoil. Consequently, you are unable to make food as well as it will go to the trash bin immediately.
Go Dairy Free
Well, are you thinking that it is difficult? How can one possibly reduce dairy use especially in the coffee industry? You would probably think there are little to no coffee shops out there that would ever go dairy-free. Well, actually, you can do it.
You can replace dairy milk products with vegetal milk such as almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, oat milk, macadamia milk, etc… There are numerous options out there that are environmentally friendly. By cutting down dairy consumption you are able to decrease the climate crisis because livestock also contributes a huge portion to increase the greenhouse effect. Cattles are the major source that produces methane as part of their daily digestive routine into the atmosphere to eradicate the ozone layers. And imagine how much methane is being produced by cattle when thousands and thousands of cows are being bred today?
Last but not least, your coffee shop would attract vegan customers if you adopt the policy of going for dairy-free products. There are many recipes to make a good vegan coffee that you can explore and use it to target vegan customers.
Buy Eco Friendly Inventory
As aforementioned, you can choose to become environmentally friendly by using green items such as eco-friendly espresso machines, reusable coffee filters, and green decorations. There are many green espresso machines out there waiting to be adopted.
Besides the coffee machine, you can also use reusable brewing equipment such as coffee filters. It is a saving and a greener way to decrease carbon footprint. For your information, reusable coffee filters are made from metal or cloth. They can be used over and over again and cleansed ready to be used the next time. It is different from using a paper coffee filter that you have to throw away after using it once. You can find numerous of the best reusable coffee filters available in the market for your needs.
Moreover, with the remaining coffee grounds, you can reuse them as well. These leftover coffee grounds are perfect to be fertilizers. They are nutritious and healthy for your plants. If your coffee shop has plants around the area, it would be great to instill these coffee grounds into the soil and wait for good results. Otherwise, you can also connect and donate these coffee grounds to the local farms. And negotiate for their fresh produce for your coffee shop instead. It would make a fair trade.
Furthermore, you can support environmentally friendly furniture such as chairs, tables, or lamps that are made of recycled materials or plantations. There are tables or chairs made of bamboo trees and recycled textiles. You will be surprised how much this furniture will look in your cafe.
Encouragement Policy
Influent your customers to be like you. Empower them to care about the environment because we are living on the same earth. There are several ways that you can embed environmental conscience on your customers.
First, you can give them incentives to boost their engagement. For instance, giving discounts or coupons whenever they brought their own tumbler or their own cups. Moreover, you can also give discounts to customers who refused to use plastic and brought in their own container for food.
You can set examples for your new or potential customers who entered your shop when they heard about these policies. In addition, you can also sell green products such as reusable tumblers that they can carry everywhere with them or green coffee or local produce. By doing these sorts of actions, you are able to encourage them to decrease their carbon footprint. Even though it is small, it will have a huge impact on society later on.
These are some easy policies that you can initiate. Moreover, you can use social media platforms to spread about the environmental practices that your cafe is doing so that fans and people on the internet are empowered.
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
After reading the above paragraphs, I hope that you have some ideas on how to develop your cafe into a green and sustainable cafe. There is one more reminder that I would like to suggest is to reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as possible.
These three hierarchies for a greener lifestyle are important. It first began for all of us to reduce our consumption. If it is not necessary do not go overboard especially with food. As mentioned above. Food waste is a huge problem in today’s society. We are buying so much more than we need and throw it away so easily when it gets spoiled because we could not eat it on time. It is important to ask ourselves whether or not we need the item and can we eat it on time. There are many people who need more food than us while we easily throw them away. Come to think of it, you are not just throwing away food or regular vegetables. You are throwing away the energy that was invested in it. The water, electricity, and power are being projected to have this food that you are about to throw away. Therefore, please reconsider your choice and carefully evaluate whether or not you are able to cook it on time to avoid wasting food.
Reuse anything that can be reused. For example, the coffee ground, you can reuse as a soil fertilizer and the soil will thank you for it. And you can buy reusable coffee filters or coffee cups as well. These are some methods to use things over and over again. Reuse its potential before throwing it away.
Recycling is another green practice that you can develop in your cafe as well. After reducing and reusing, you can turn to recycle the objects. Sometimes, there are people out there who would like to use these objects even though they are second-hand. On the other hand, papers, cardboard, or plastic bottles can be recycled as well. These materials can go to specialized machines and companies can reuse them.
Therefore, practice these three hierarchies for greener lifestyles and green coffee shops altogether.
Conclusion
We have made it to the end of this article. I hope you have learned something about how to become an eco-friendly cafe. You can start practicing some of these ideas right away, especially the mentioned cost-saving strategies for coffee shops so that you can lessen the electricity and water bills.
And don’t forget about the eco-friendly inventory to replace those single used plastics. We don’t want to have single used plastic anymore because it is hazardous. They are deadly to the environment and we want to diminish plastic pollution. We can seek other alternatives such as paper straws, biodegradable paper or wrappings, and reusable cups.
Last but not least, encourage your customers to do the same. Give them incentives and rewards to get them going with their own practices. If they are empowered by you and your ideas, they are most likely going to do the same. Let’s all have a greener lifestyle together.
References
- How to make your cafe sustainable: 10 impactful actions | Mobile Transaction
- A Guide to Running a Sustainable Coffee Shop | Climate Conscious
- Lighten your Carbon Footprint | Sanremo Coffee Machines
How A Company In Berlin Is Turning Coffee Grounds Into Reusable Cups By Tech Insider