We’ve measured the carbon footprint of all our products, from growing the crop to boiling the kettle, and we’re now working to improve the hot spots.
Here are a few of our findings to get you thinking:
- When looking across all our coffee, tea & cocoa products, the energy used to boil water is responsible for the majority of the carbon emissions per cup. This seems to be especially true for beverages served from vending machinery. So … only boil what you need and think about purchasing renewable energy!
- Fertiliser use is the next biggest contributor, especially in coffee.
- Shipping (by sea), storage, distribution, processing and packaging creation/disposal all result in relatively minimal carbon emissions. This is slightly different in the case of cocoa, where the product requires more processing (e.g. mixing with other ingredients) and thus processing is a larger contributor to the overall footprint.
- Comparing a cup of coffee (no milk/sugar), tea (no milk) & cocoa (add water) drunk at home to each other … a cup of cocoa has the highest footprint. And if you choose add-milk cocoa over add-water, that footprint more than quadruples! This is due to the emissions from the milk itself.
You can read more about the carbon footprint of our products and our company on our blog here.