Would you like to find beautiful eco-friendly cafes in your area? You’d also be supporting the greenest baristas in the process. Are you wondering what even makes a cafe eco-friendly? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that. I’m going to share with you how EcoRate helps you find and review cafes based on how eco-friendly they are. Most importantly, I’ll explain how our sustainability app is a great way to collaborate for the environment.
Eco-Friendly Cafes
So what exactly makes a cafe eco-friendly? A lot of factors contribute to the environmental footprint of coffee from how beans are grown to how drinks are served. In the EcoRate app we focus on how much waste is produced on-site at the cafe. Across the whole supply chain, this waste is the easiest to cut out. Everything that’s needed to close the loop is right there in the cafe, or at least it should be. It’s also the part of the supply chain that you the customer have great visibility into.
Did you notice how I said “environmental footprint” rather than “carbon footprint“? Reducing greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is an important climate goal, but it’s only part of what’s needed. The other critical piece is reducing toxic waste materials. The reason that almost all of the climate goals you hear about tend to focus exclusively on GHGs is that they are easier to quantify. If this is starting to sound overly complex, you can breathe easier. EcoRate considers both GHG emissions and the toxicity of waste materials. So you can just go by our combined 1 to 5 rating system. We’re a public benefit corporation on a mission to:
“Empower people to reduce consumer waste using actionable community-driven data.”
https://ecorate.eco/about
Reducing consumer waste is a great way to reduce both GHGs and toxic waste materials. It’s also leads to way more fun and enjoyable cafe experiences. So let’s look at how EcoRate helps you find an eco-friendly cafe with its sustainability map.
Sustainability App
EcoRate is a free sustainability ratings app for cafes. With a glance at our sustainability map, you can find an eco-friendly cafe near you. On our map, the higher a cafe’s rating is, the larger and greener its cafe icon will be.
Environmental Comparison
In this screenshot taken of upper Manhattan, it’s easy to see that Da Capo is the most eco-friendly cafe in the area. Its mug icon is larger and greener than the other ones. And if you zoom out far enough to have two cafe icons collide, the map will only show the one with the higher rating. You can use this simple local comparison to find the most eco-friendly cafe near you. When you’ll do that, you also be rewarding the cafes that are already enacting good sustainability practices. This is a critical part of working together to encourage more sustainable outcomes.
Sustainability Attributes
Let’s take a closer look at another cafe. Here’s what it looks like when you tap on IXV Coffee in Brooklyn, New York. IXV is the highest rated cafe we’ve found so far in EcoRate, congrats to them! Each of the little badges on the bottom tell you something about the cafe. The first one means that they use mugs for hot drinks. The second one shows that they allow BYO thermoses. The third badge shows that IXV uses reusable cups for cold drinks. You might think that is redundant with the mug badge, but you can’t reliably predict one from the other. You can tap on any of these badges to see a description of what it says about the cafe.
Sustainability Map
The most critical part of getting a drink at a cafe sustainably is using a reusable container. Using a mug or a glass is great for dine-in drinks. We show that a cafe uses reusables for dine-in drinks on the map by putting the handle on the right side of that cafe’s mug icon. Another great way to get a coffee without all the trash is to BYO cup or thermos. You just have to go to a cafe that accepts them. Our sustainability app shows this on the map by putting a heart inside the mug icon of cafes that accept customer thermoses. We even show which cafes do contactless pours to fill your thermos without touching it, but that’s still pretty rare.
With just a glance at the map, these simple details make it easy to know where you can get a drink at without all the waste. Take a look for yourself on our map. The legend is open in the top left to explain what everything means.
Environmental Collaboration
You may be wondering how EcoRate gets information about how eco-friendly cafes are. Like most ratings platforms, our primary source of information is from user reviews. Unlike most ratings platforms, our reviews are objective. They only take a few seconds to do because you just answer some multiple-choice questions about your order.
It is essential that you review the cafes you go to on EcoRate. That helps the next person make a more informed decision about which cafe to go to. With up-to-date information, EcoRate is a solid means of making purchasing decisions based on environmental criteria. You want to support businesses that respect your low-waste values, and help others do the same.
The first step is using EcoRate to find sustainable cafes. This reduces your own environmental footprint. Then, when you review cafes on our sustainability app, you help other people reduce their environmental footprint as well. This is how EcoRate is a powerful means of environmental collaboration. Together we can accomplish things that would be unimaginable alone. Together we will clean up the cafe industry.
Better in Every Way
You can find our free sustainability app on the iOS and Android app stores. EcoRate is also available as a website at ecorate.eco. I hope EcoRate will help you assert environmental criteria when you choose a cafe to go to. It’s for sure better for the environment to drink coffee from a mug instead of a paper cup lined with plastic. And I bet you’ll find that going to an eco-friendly cafe makes the experience way better. The cup is nicer, the ambiance is better, the coffee beans even tend to better. Best of all, instead of getting pushed out the door with a single-use cup, dining in with a mug encourages you to stay. You can unwind with your coffee and relax. Maybe the person next to you is even one of the people you helped find an eco-friendly cafe with your EcoRate reviews.
