The first month of 2022 is officially coming to a close (we’re not quite sure where the time went either), phew! Over the past few weeks, we’ve been busy behind the scenes, making some exciting plans for 2022, taste-testing some awesome new coffee, and reflecting on the year passed.
Whilst 2021 proved to be another challenging year for us all, there were a few highlights in there too for Team Dear Green. With the new year in full swing, we thought it would be the perfect time to take a look back, celebrate some of our 2021 ‘best bits’, and share some positivity ahead of a brand new month. So grab a brew and let’s get started!
Team Dear Green expanded
We’re a small but mighty team here at Dear Green, and last year, we were delighted to welcome fantastic new team members to our coffee crew. Meet Anna, our brilliant roastery assistant. From packing beans and processing orders to looking after our lovely customers (that’s you!) Anna does it all, she’s even learning how to roast!
We won two awards for our green practices
As a B Corp, it is our mission to use our business as a force for good, putting people and the planet over profit. We’re super passionate about our environmental practices and are always working on new ways to keep our Dear Green place… green! With this in mind, it was great to have our ethical practice celebrated at The Glasgow Business Awards where we won the ‘Green Champions’ award, and again at SEPA’s Vibe Awards where we picked up a ‘Good Practice’ award for our environmental efforts. Here’s to more where that came from in 2022!
We made the Net Zero pledge
Inspired by our B Corp community, we decided to join the thousands of businesses who have publicly pledged to be NetZero by 2030, although we're sure we'll manage it sooner! By continuing with our environmental ethos and by continually revising how we travel to work, how we deliver your coffee as well as reducing what we buy and what we waste, we believe we can be part of the solution, not the problem. We have made the pledge to have zero emissions so that we can have a fairer world for all. Read more about our race to net zero.
We’ve measured our carbon footprint (the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organisation, or product) and with the help of our friends at Compare Your Footprint and are due to publish information on our Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions with our plans on how to reduce in the coming weeks. Make the pledge and join us!
COP26 came to town
Back in November 2021, our Dear Green Place proudly hosted COP26 where world leaders came together to collaborate on climate solutions. As an environmentally conscious company and B Corp, we were excited to join in on the conversation and attend some of the incredible events that popped up across the city.
Notably, we were delighted to be able to support COP’s Transport Day. Whilst delegates charged their electric vehicles, we kept them fuelled with our coffee! We set up a pop up at The Electric Juice Depot offering delicious coffee from Las Tejedoras in Mexico, sourced for us by coffee traders and fellow B Corp Caravela Coffee.
Though our impact on the planet has always been a big focus for us at Dear Green, the Covid-19 lockdown helped us to hone in on our efforts, simplify our operations, reduce travel and delve a little deeper into improving our practices. COP engaged us, taught us, and highlighted the climate emergency and the need for group action. Read more about our sustainability journey.
We continued to purchase coffee sustainably from brilliant producers
Supporting the amazing people who grow our beans and building long-term sustainable sourcing patterns with these producers has always been important to us at Dear Green.
Throughout the madness of 2021, we were delighted to be able to continue to support our long-standing relationships with incredible producers like Fazenda Pantano in Cerrado, Brazil. The Rama Women’s Association in Burundi, the AMACA group of women producers in Cauca, Colombia and the delicious coffees from Tumba, Bombe and Odaco washing stations in Rwanda and Ethiopia.
We also formed new and lasting relationships and roasted some impressive coffees from exceptional producers who supplied us with microlots with truly unique flavours. We’re giving a nod to the syrupy sweet Eucalyptus notes from Nestor Lasso at El Diviso in Colombia and to the complex layers of ripe tropical fruit in the naturally processed Red Bourbon from Bumbogo in Rwanda.
We joined the World Coffee Research Checkoff Program
Coffee is pretty important to us! We want it to be around for longer that it is currently predicted to be! We want to support the research and actions which will sustain us and you and the coffee communities who rely so much on this incredible plant.
We've quietly donated a % of our profits to World Coffee Research for years but this year we decided to join the Checkoff Program which means that our coffee sourcing partners will also donate form every kg of coffee we buy! Doubling the support! We're excited to progress our commitment and increase our donation and to follow the results of science and agriculture in progressing the coffee industry sustainably.
New product launches!
After being so stagnant in 2020 (it’s not our style!), in 2021, we finally launched one of our favourite coffee sets - the Four Origins Gift Set. Four lots of freshly roasted, specialty-grade coffee, monthly changing origins of our current favourites! The perfect gift for any lover of quality coffee!Presented in beautiful reusable tins and with information about each coffee producer. Each set contains 85g coffee each from:
Mexico, Las Tejedoras, Typica, Washed process
Ethiopia, Odaco Washing Station, Heirloom Varieties, Natural process
Rwanda, Bumbogo Washing Station, Red Bourbon, Natural process
Colombia, El Diviso, Pink Bourbon, Honey Process
If you're interested in learning more about these coffees, check out our Four Origins guide.
We welcomed some fabulous new cafes and restaurants to Scotland
Scotland’s food and drinks scene continues to wow us year after year, and 2021 was no different. We are so lucky! There’s never been a better time to support small, local businesses, so if you’re looking for some fantastic coffee stops and eateries to visit this year, here are a few 2021 newcomers we think you should check out - Juicy (Glasgow West End and Silverburn), Brawsome Bagels (Dumbarton Road, Glasgow), Bahn Mi Bar (West Port, Edinburgh), Bute Brew Bar (Situated in Bonnie Bling, Bute).
Hello shiny new website
If you’re reading this right now, you might have noticed that things are looking a little different around here. In 2021, we invested some time into revamping our website to give you the best visitor experience possible. Here on our shiny new site, you can not only shop for delicious beans and award-winning coffee kit, you can also read all about our business impact, and keep up to date with our latest blogs! Why not have a browse around?
We turned 10!
10 whole years of Dear Green eh, can you believe it? From humble beginnings at our tiny roastery by the Clyde to our current coffee hub here in the heart of Glasgow’s creative East End, we’ve come a long way and so too has the specialty coffee industry. We’ve roasted thousands of sacks of delicious beans, launched the Glasgow Coffee Festival, the Scottish Aeropress Championships and the UK Roasting Championship. We've been involved in setting up the Roasters Guild of Europe and we've trained so many baristas across the country! We've brewed coffee for the stars, collabed with some brilliant brands, and with the support of our amazing customers have kept Glasgow fuelled through the good times (to many to mention!) and the bad. To say the past few years have been extremely tough for small businesses like us is quite an understatement. This makes us especially grateful to be standing right here in our roastery today, ensuring you’re kept fuelled for at least the next ten years!
We’ve achieved so much over the past decade and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for us! Here’s to many more years of roasting delicious, ethical coffee right here in our Dear Green Place.
We’re wishing all of our brilliant customers all the best for 2022, we hope it’s off to a great start so far!
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