- BLUE SPARROW COFFEE -
2022
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Published April 14th, 2023
Over the past year we have been sure to use "hand quotes" or strikethrough the word "Sustainability" whenever we talk about it, write about it, or post about it. WHY? Because we feel the word is so overused that it's misused and has lost its meaning all together. That's why we started the rumor that "Sustainability" is DEAD. Simply put we think "sustainable" isn't good enough. We just haven't found a word to replace it yet. In the meantime, we hope you don't mind the strikethrough.
Last updated on August 18th, 2022
Thanks to our friends at the City of Denver's Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency Office we are now recognized as a Certifiably Green Denver business. The certification process includes a voluntary review of our business management, energy efficiency, water conservation, resource management, and transportation policies and operations. Similar to other "sustainability" certificates, the goal of the program is to assess business practices through a lens of "sustainability", recognize those who go the extra mile, and encourage continued progress through an annual re-certification. We even got a certificate signed by the mayor!
In January of 2022 we launched our Single Use Initiative to create our very own “Sustainability” Fund. The plan was to collect $0.10 from every single-use cup sold in the hopes that it would encourage a change in customer behavior towards reusable products. We wanted to make sure it didn’t just feel like a sneaky up-charge so we committed to using 100% of the proceeds to fund "sustainable" initiatives we wouldn’t otherwise take on. Turns out it was much more work for our team to account for accurately and ended up being so burdensome to track it was slowing down the implementation of our initiatives. We’re learning from our mistakes, scrapping that plan, and starting over with our alternative milks.
Why Alt-Milks? Well a glass of dairy milk produces close to x3 more greenhouse gas (GHG) than its alt-milk competitors (oat, soy, and almond). We acknowledge there are other areas for improvement in the alt-milk arena, but GHG's drive climate change so we are most interested in reducing their presence in our stores.
Let’s do some quick math. We used to charge $0.65 for alternative milk and when our prices went up this year we calculated the new cost at around ~ $0.75. But when you buy a drink with alt-milk at Blue Sparrow the charge is $0.50. That’s where the new "Sustainability" Fund comes in. We decided to subsidize the cost of alternative milks with our fund to keep prices low on lower impact options within our store. 100% of our single-use charge will go to keeping alternative milks cheaper, in the name of "sustainability".
January 1, 2022
We read up on consumer behaviors and discovered that charging for single-use cups instead of discounting reusable cups is proven to increase reusables by 126.8% in some scenarios (our source). So we made the switch. To see how our customers react, we are now tracking trends in reusables at Blue Sparrow; in the first two months of our Single-Use Initiative we tracked over 5,000 reusables coming into our two locations, but over 20,000 single-use cups going out... $0.10 per single-use cup (the full amount of the Single-Use Initiative) will go towards our "Sustainability" Fund, used to continue moving the needle with innovative and exciting initiatives that support our people and the planet. So relax, stay awhile and enjoy the hard work of our baristas served in our in-house glassware, or bring a to-go cup of your own.
Know Before You Go: - Guests will be charged $0.10 for each single-use cup ordered. - Each charge on your order will be displayed on your receipt. - You are now contributing to the future of sustainability at Blue Sparrow Coffee!
April 14, 2023
A little bit of top secret work is in progress here. We will let you know when the beans get spilt.
April 1, 2022
Turns out, companies that work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on "sustainability" adopt significantly more practices than those that do not (our source), so this year we decided to find a long-term partner to work with to achieve "sustainability" goals outside of our normal reach… In walked Zero Foodprint… To put it simply, we send Zero Foodprint $0.10 from each bag of coffee that we sell and they put together grants for farmers to offset the cost of transitioning to regenerative farming practices. Regenerative farming keeps our soil healthy and healthy soil captures and stores carbon, a huge win for our climate! Right now, we are part of a three-month pilot with Oatly (our oat milk of choice) to get the ball rolling.
OUR PROGRESS
