Environment, sustainability, and efficiency are some of the most recent top topics in the coffee industry as well as our society. From the farm level, through to production level, and finally to the consumer stage, these topics are discussed very often.

To begin with, defining the words is necessary to understand the concept in context. DICTIONARY.COM describes these words as below.

Environment noun

• the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences; surroundings; milieu.

• Ecology. the air, water, minerals, organisms, and all other external factors surrounding and affecting a given organism at any time.

• the social and cultural forces that shape the life of a person or a population.

• Computers. the hardware or software configuration, or the mode of operation, of a computer system: In a time-sharing environment, transactions are processed as they occur.

• an indoor or outdoor setting that is characterized by the presence of ENVIRONMENTAL ART that is itself designed to be site-specific.

Sustainability noun

• the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed.

• Environmental Science. the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance: The committee is developing sustainability standards for products that use energy.

Efficiency noun, plural efficiencies.

• the state or quality of being EFFICIENT, or able to accomplish something with the least waste of time and effort; competency in performance.

• accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort: The assembly line increased industry's efficiency.

• the ratio of the work done or energy developed by a machine, engine, etc., to the energy supplied to it, usually expressed as a percentage.

• EFFICIENCY APARTMENT.

(When all these are combined together) what this means in context is that 'Every single element around us that are constantly affecting the entire supply chain of coffee, should be as sustainable as possible to reach the minimum level of influences on environment hence the industry moves forward to reach the best efficiency so that the industry ecologies in each stage of origin, transporting, roasting, brewing, selling and even wasting.'

Therefore, it is important to look at each part deep. For the environment, not only the global warming or carbon emissions is an issue but also water usage, electricity usage, wastage, total production to total resources ratio, et cetera are the often missing parts which are supposed to be considered the first.

For sustainability, it is not only the sustainable-ability of the business but also it should consider and understand the whole process and supply chain of every single element and ingredients.

For the efficiency, as described, not only producing the goods/services as best important but also minimising the waste of time and effort is a notably significant factor.

Consequently, everyone in the supply chain whether from a farm, trading company, roastery, bar or consumer level, should consider this context and start acting wisely for our future. In the following articles, a bit more detailed concept will be discussed.

The first action Normcore Coffee has taken is the material of cups. Our takeaway cups have recently been changed to recyclable material. This is helped by Detpak RecycleMe project (HTTPS://WWW.DETPAK.COM/RECYCLEME/). There are a number of taking away packaging suppliers, however, we have chosen Detpak as they are an Australian company and are having a better sustainable manufacturing facility hence a better sustainable supply-ability. In addition, we have just launched a reusable cup product from Frank Green. As they are based in Australia, manufacturing in Australia, and are producing nice quality cups with beautiful designs and colours, we have chosen them as the Normcore Reusable cup.

As mentioned, various actions that can be taken at each level will be discussed in the following series of articles.

Let’s think of our future.