Matthew Algie Sustainability Report 2019/2020
Welcome
In this update we reflect on our achievements in 2019-20 and assess our progress against our strategic Sustainability Plan.
The main body of our update follows the outline of our five strategic pillars – sustainable sourcing of coffee, sustainable sourcing of the other products that we buy for Espresso Warehouse or for internal use, reducing our environmental impact, investing in our employees and engaging with our community. However, this year’s update also includes a separate section on the COVID-19 pandemic and how our commitment to sustainability has permeated our decision-making even in the face of very troubling times.
Though the past year has undoubtedly been a challenging one for us and our upstream and downstream partners, the opportunity to reflect and learn from our experiences has been very welcome. We are proud of the progress that we have made in these difficult circumstances and we are fully on board with the call for businesses to drive a sustainable, green recovery in the years ahead.
Amy Oroko
Sustainability Manager
Recap: Our Sustainability Manifesto
Our Sustainability 5 Year Plan was launched internally at the start of 2017. 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. Furthermore, the intention of our first report was to bring to life our longstanding commitment to sustainability, spanning the five strategic pillars of our approach.
This is the second update that we have published since then, and it reflects the progress made in 2019-20. This marks a deviation from our plans to report our progress on an annual basis. We made this decision to combine two reports in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for careful management of our internal resource in 2020. Nevertheless, our internal governance structure on sustainability has remained the consistent, as has our annual cycle of monitoring and learning.
In keeping with this, we plan to publish our next external update in 2022, which will reflect on our progress in the coming year. 2020 really has been an exceptional year and we therefore feel it is appropriate to extend our Sustainability strategic plan for a further year, to the end of 2022.
