You have a lot more say in the sustainability of cafes than you might think. Do you work hard to get zero waste coffee when you go to cafes? Maybe you get your morning coffee in a thermos instead of a single-use cup and systematically refuse plastic straws. Those are great individual actions to take, but they can make you miss the bigger picture. Don’t worry, there’s good news too! Fostering cafe sustainability is easy, fun, and can lead you to discover some great new spots in your area.
Zero Waste Coffee
It’s true that circular systems of reuse always win out over “linear” systems where everything goes to landfill. Want a deep-dive comparison of a single-use coffee cup and a mug with respect to carbon footprint and toxicity, check out our earlier blog post. The environmental cost of a thermos is going to depend on how and where it was made, but its sustainability profile is going to resemble that of a mug. As long as you use it enough, a reusable container is going to be better for the environment than a sea of single-use items. Any card-carrying zero waste proponent knows that using a thermos dramatically cuts down on your waste profile, so what’s the problem?
The issue is that there’s more than your personal environmental footprint at stake. Much more. I wrote all about how individual change leads to systems change, and that’s at the heart of the problem. What we need is a way to guide your individual actions so that they’ll encourage larger changes. It’s great that you’re getting zero waste coffee with your thermos. Now you just have to take that one step further and think about the larger repercussions of your personal choice.
Support Eco-friendly Cafes
The goal is to support cafes that share your environmental values. To borrow the title from Jane Mosbacher Morris’s book, you can Buy the Change You Want to See. Running a cafe is a very hard business. Operating one sustainably can be even more challenging since many local laws incentivize wastefulness. Favoring cafes that operate sustainably is a powerful green gesture. It has the double effect of supporting sustainable businesses and encouraging less sustainable ones to improve. You can use the EcoRate sustainability app as a free and easy way to know which cafes operate in a more sustainable and low-waste way. EcoRate emphasizes their most significant sustainability attributes and shows them to you right on the map.
Equality as a Model for Environmental Values
I think of this as very similar to how important equality is to most people. I am not a member of the LGBTQ+ community, but I wouldn’t even set foot in a place that refused to serve them or any other group of people. It wouldn’t matter if I would be treated well at the cafe. I would refuse to go because equality is a core value for me. I wouldn’t want to support a business that was so severely at odds with this value. It’s the same thing with environmental values. Even if I got my coffee in a thermos, I wouldn’t want to go to an otherwise high-waste cafe. It’s good that my order would be served in a low-waste way, but I would still be supporting a high-waste cafe and that is severely counterproductive for waste prevention.
Concerns About Going Green
Hopefully you’re on board with how important it is to support green businesses. You may still have a couple of concerns. Let’s take a look at some common causes for hesitation when considering supporting sustainable cafes.
Money
Worried about what following your green heart might cost you? Cafes that favor reusables are by definition more likely to give you a discount for getting your drink in a thermos or other reusable cup. So you actually stand a good chance of saving money by making the more sustainable choice.
Experience
What if you like the high-waste cafe that you currently go to? You have no idea what you’re missing! When you stop and look, you’d be surprised how many great low-waste options you’ll find. Maybe your current “favorite” is more a question of habit than real preference.
We call the stand-out cafes “neighborhood gems” and they’re more common than you might expect. People generally start using EcoRate to take control of their waste footprint and put their purchasing power to work for the environment. A lot of our most devoted users are surprised by how fun it is to use EcoRate as a means to explore their neighborhood and discover their new favorite spots.
Connection to Cafe
This is a tougher one, what if your regular cafe is high-waste, but it’s run by your aunt Ruth. If you’re close with the management at your go-to cafe and it’s high waste, think of it as an opportunity. Aunt Ruth stands a better chance of listening to your environmental concerns than those of a one-off customer. Tell her all about how important it is to cut down on pointless waste, and how much money she can save. A great goal is to get a cafe to default to reusable mugs and glasses for dine-in orders. That’s the kind of change that can prevent hundreds of cups of waste *every day*.
Assert Your Environmental Values
We’ve seen that choosing to go to cafes that reflect your environmental values is the way to make your individual actions go dramatically further. It actively supports the best cafes and encourages the high-waste ones to do better. Communicating your environmental values through your purchasing decisions can save you money. It can even dramatically improve your customer experience at cafes. With all these benefits, the only thing remaining is to choose to assert your environmental values.
Are you clear on what your environmental values are? Have you ever stopped to consider if you have any? Why not start with us at EcoRate by trying to reduce your waste footprint. We’re currently focusing on cafes because there are great and easy low-waste options. This also provides a daily opportunity to insert some intentionality for the environment in your routine. Declare your environmental values to yourself, then express them to the world through your actions.
Clean Up the Cafe Industry
I sincerely hope you enjoy this experience of personal exploration and value affirmation. I’d also love to hear about it. Feel free to share your story with us on social media. Remember, EcoRate is a public benefit corporation on a mission to:
Empower people to reduce consumer waste using actionable community-driven data
Read more about our environmental mission
If we’ve empowered you to better match your daily choices to your environmental values, then you’re helping us make real progress on our mission. Together we can clean up the cafe industry, and get a lot closer to the ideal of zero waste coffee.
Itís nearly impossible to find experienced people on this subject, but you sound like you know what youíre talking about! Thanks