Our 2017-2022 Sustainability Plan was a milestone for us. Building on our longstanding commitment to sustainability, this marked the first time we externally published our sustainability ambitions and committed to our cycle of monitoring, learning and reporting on progress. The plan was a couple of years in the making and our thoughtful approach to developing these goals in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals is detailed in our first Sustainability Report, published in 2018.

A helpful point of reflection for us, it has been insightful to see where having our strategy in place has helped to deepen our impact. We have sought to be as transparent as possible in communicating where we have made real progress and where there have been challenges. As detailed in our 2019-20 Sustainability Report, the COVID-19 pandemic posed some significant challenges to the business and our ability to remain on-track for achieving our full suite of sustainability goals. Nevertheless, we feel we have been able to demonstrate real progress, with particular highlights including celebrating 25 years of selling Fairtrade certified coffee, launching five origin programmes, achieving a significant absolute decrease in our electricity usage (despite physical expansion into additional warehouse and office space), attaining carbon neutrality since 2018, becoming an accredited Real Living Wage employer in 2021 and raising more than £78,000 to support our partner charities. External recognition through three award wins, most recently our “Green Champion” Award at the Glasgow Business Awards in 2022, have also brought external validation of our approach over this period.

Using our 2017-2022 Sustainability Plan as a launchpad for further broadening our horizons, we are pleased to be communicating our future sustainability ambitions as part of this report. Driven by our Managing Director, Paul Chadderton, and the Senior Team more broadly, we launched our Net Zero by 2040 target in 2022. Our roadmap to 2040 is a more comprehensive vision of the actions we need to take to minimise our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in line with the latest climate science. The purpose of our new 2023-24 goals is to give us strategic direction over the next two years. This will lay the foundations for our net zero journey, and bring alignment in the time periods that we will work towards for our environmental, social and economic sustainability objectives. From 2025 onwards our intention is to work on a 5-year planning cycle across our five pillars.

On a personal note, it has been a delight to see our initial plans through to fruition and to have reached a point where we can make even bolder and braver commitments. It’s also been hugely exciting to be able to expand our Sustainability Team in recent years. Alan Beattie, our Sustainability Analyst, has played a crucial role in developing our Net Zero by 2040 plans as well as contributing significantly to this report. I’m looking forward to us as a business pressing onwards and taking radical steps in the right direction in partnership with our stakeholders.

Amy Oroko, Sustainability Manager