Our Environmental Commitment
Sustainability is at the heart of everything that we do here at Danes. We genuinely believe it is our responsibility to show leadership to reduce our environmental footprint across all possible aspects of our business.
For us, it's all about knowing that we're making our contribution to help ensure the beautiful surroundings that we know and love today are here for future generations.
2021 - Business Sustainability Award Winner
Danes are proud to be awarded the Northern Beaches Business Sustainability Award at the 2021 Local Business Awards. The award highlights excellence in embedding sustainability practices in business planning, operations and marketing.
Some ways that we're making a difference, include:
Coffee – Sourcing Green Beans
For more than 25 years, we’ve worked continuously with reputable green bean coffee farms and suppliers globally to source sustainable and ethical coffees of the finest quality.
We roast passionately in-house, minimising wastage across all elements of production and collaborating with our coffee brokers and farmers to source the most ethical, delicious and sustainable coffee for our customers to savour.
Energy – Solar
We’ve installed the largest possible roof solar system, with the most advanced panels, inverters and smart meter, which on weekdays has reduced our grid consumption by up to 75-100%.
This has currently saved the equivalent of more than 42,000 kg of Co, or more than 1,250 trees planted, and also enables us to feed sustainable energy back into the grid.
Packing/Packaging
Danes have always had a strong culture of reduce, reuse, recycle, with established initiatives across the business.
Our orders are packed in plastic-free, reusable and recyclable packaging and our new coffee bags from our long-term packaging partner - The Bag Broker - are fully recyclable via 'REDcycle'.
Shipping/Delivery
Through our shipping partner, Shippit and their couriers including Australia Post, Couriers Please, TNT and Aramex – where possible we carbon offset the impact of all deliveries made to our customers, Australia-wide.
Plus, we use plastic-free packaging in the order fulfilment process to ensure that we're being as sustainable as possible whilst also protecting our customer's precious, caffeinated cargo sufficiently!
Takeaway Coffee cups
We encourage the use of reusable coffee cups wherever possible, with our branded range of KeepCups, and our takeaway coffee cups are the most environmentally advanced available. Made from plants they are commercially compostable and recyclable.
We also offer on-site collection and recycling of all takeaway coffee cups with SimplyCups at our roastery drive-in coffee van, and we plan to offer this to all our coffee partner cafes. The program is one of the few genuine coffee cup recycling programs, where the cups are ’upcycled’ into a range of products, many of which are being introduced here on the northern beaches.
Recycling
We have implemented an extensive recycling program divert the maximum possible away from landfill and into the recycling and reuse ecosystems.
This includes all hessian bags, coffee beans, coffee grounds, coffee chaff, metals,and soft plastics.
Working with NSW EPA Bin Trim program and our friends from ‘PlatetoPaddock’ has enabled us to give a second life to almost all by products of our coffee production including coffee beans, grounds and chaff.
The hessian bags our coffee beans arrive in are donated to local market farmers as sustainable weed matting, and our coffee grinds and chaff are recycled to local gardens.
We also offer on-site collection and recycling of all takeaway coffee cups at our roastery drive-in coffee van.
Audit
In our recent EPA ‘Bin Trim’ audit, we were rated in the top percentile of businesses for waste reduction, recycling between 92 and 100% of waste and by-products.
We continue to work with the EPA and strive to improve our performance.
Key sustainability achievements?
- Installed solar power in 2019, reducing our grid consumption during the week by 75-100% and feeding energy back into the grid on weekends, already saving more than 42,000 kg of Co2, or more than 1,250 trees planted.
- Recycle all possible aspects of our coffee roasting by-products, and office operations including soft plastics, paper and cardboard, metal, co-mingled waste, green bean hessian bags, roasting by-product (chaff) and coffee grounds
- Reusing packaging we receive where we can further minimise our levels of waste
- Rated in the top percentile of businesses in New South Wales in our recent EPA (Environmental Protection Authority NSW) audit, for recycling between 92-100% of waste products generated across our operations.
- Introduce recyclable coffee bags which can be genuinely recycled into new products at the end of their life.
- All packaging is plastic free, reusable, and recyclable.
- Carbon-offset deliveries via our shipping partner, Shippit
- Introduce plant-based takeaway coffee cups, which are commercially compostable and recyclable
- In partnership with ‘Simply Cups’, we have launched on-site coffee cup recycling units at our roastery
- Switching to energy efficient LED lighting across our entire roastery and office operations.