While at university, we joined Enactus, a student-led social enterprise, opening our eyes to how business can be a force for good that can have a genuinely positive impact in the world. The coffee industry has a long history of exploitative trade, where producers living in some of the most politically and environmentally challenging parts of the world have to accept unfair trading practices designed to benefit consumers. So we set out to start a business that makes a real, tangible difference to the most important people in the supply chain: the producers!

Sustainability has become a real buzzword in the coffee industry. For us, sustainability is at the heart of what we want to aim towards as a social enterprise, and this goes far beyond increasing the amount we recycle and minimising waste (although this is still very important). To maximise our impact, at Brew Crew we constantly consider sustainability throughout the entire supply chain, and assess where we can make a difference at each stage. So what exactly does this mean ?

Like the coffee we buy, our focus on sustainability has to begin at origin. This is often overlooked, but a large proportion of the carbon produced from coffee, is done so during farming and transportation. This is a big reason why our sourcing strategy is so important to us. By developing long-term trading relationships with farmers and cooperatives, and ensuring we pay well above Fairtrade prices, we can make sure that we give farmers the financial stability they need to be able to invest in sustainable farming practices and reduce their impact on the environment. To go even further, many of our projects also provide farms and cooperatives with additional means of reducing their impact on the environment at the heart of coffee production. By co-funding projects, such as our reforestation project with Copaíba in Brazil, we provide tangible impact to do our bit to ensure that the coffee industry, and the planet, is here to stay.

Once we have purchased our coffee for fair prices in sustainable trading relationships, and supported projects at origin, we minimise our impact on the environment wherever we can once it gets to us. None of our packaging needs to go to landfill, and is available in fully compostable or recyclable packaging. We also help our wholesale partners to operate sustainably From supplying the most energy efficient machines and providing fully compostable packaging, to encouraging more efficient barista work flow to minimise waste and cost, we do all we can to keep our waste and our impact on the environment as low as possible.

As a social enterprise, we are committed to creating a sustainable business model, that offers value to our customers not at the expense of the rest of the coffee supply chain or the planet. By commiting portions of all our coffee sales, we ensure that can contribute to meaningful environmental projects, such as Atlantic Reforestation Project. Helping restore damaged biomes in countries we source coffee from, as well as using compostable packaging means we ensure a consistent philosophy towards our commitment to progressing as a business committed to sustainability in all parts of our operations.

Committing portions of all our coffee sales is our way of ensuring we pass back some of the value added at the end of supply chain in coffee. Partnering with our importers and award winning NGO's means we can ensure we are contributing to meaningful causes, that will pave a more sustainable future for the coffee industry.