Responsibility

We care

Step by Step towards a green coffee shop

As regards sustainability, it is a matter close to our heart both as entrepreneurs and as human beings to act as a role model for our guests and other catering businesses.
We want to fulfil our enormous responsibility towards the environment as well as stimulate to generally rethink things in society.

Let’s be honest:

Plastic-free straws are great, but using no straws at all is by far more sustainable!

Our motto is to communicate quite frankly and honestly and primarily create transparency.

Where do we stand and where do we want to go?

„We can state with good conscience that we think a lot about our social and economic responsibility. We are carefully adavancing, are innovative and are looking beyond the box. But we do know that we still have a long way to go and that we must never stop.“  (Stefan Tewes, General Manager of Coffee Fellows)  

From the abundance of all important sustainability aspects, we are currently focusing on the following areas.

The quality of our coffee beans is our top priority.

This is the only way we can ensure the high standard of our specialty coffees. With the Coffee Fellows Certified seal, we ensure that our coffee beans are sourced according to certified standards and transparently along the value chain.

This seal is a sign of our commitment to quality and sustainability.

In a better world for us, every guest would bring their own reusable mug from the start. We provide an incentive for this and give a 25 cent discount on the coffee drink.

In addition, you can use the CARE CUP deposit system for your Coffee-To-Go in many of our shops and thus support the planting of trees in addition to sustainable reuse.

For the sake of the environment, we have taken our clear cups out of our range. This change saves us approximately 5.5 tonnes of polyethylene per year.

We also now only use recycled napkins and wooden cutlery. Upon request, our guests receive a certified bio-based straw with their cold drink.

Since we are of the opinion that straws are far too good to end up in the rubbish after a maximum of 5 minutes of drinking fun due to their resource-intensive production, we no longer give out straws for hot drinks. And we want to keep reducing their use overall.

Where do we stand?

At the end of 2020, we planted the first 13ha of land with seedlings of native trees to offset our 2019 CO2 emissions in 20 years and also create new habitats for wildlife. By paying an annual lease to the landowners for at least 20 years and providing labor for about 70 people while planting, we can also support the local population.

At the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022 we continued. Additional 10ha were planted and and the stock of previously planted trees were controlled and replanted if necessary. In this way, we ensure the sustainable growth of our "Coffee Fellows Forest".

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Where do we want to go?

We want to reforest another 10-13ha of land every year to compensate for our pollutant emissions and thus create a large forest that not only absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, but also promotes biodiversity in Malawi. It is still very important to us that we save as much CO2 as possible and only compensate for unavoidable emissions.

Where do we stand?

We have the view that conscious nutrition need not mean renunciation rather than balance. For example, you may start the day with Coffee Fellows with a whole grain bread rich in fibre, a muesli or a bowl full of vitamins. From time to time, you may, however, also do something good to your soul enjoying our sweet treats like a mini muffin with your cup of coffee.

For many people, a sustainable and conscious way of life is connected with a vegan or vegetarian diet. We too take the view that our vegetarian bagels taste at least as good as the meaty snacks. Not only for the sake of animal welfare, but also of our environment, we are constantly stocking up our vegan and vegetarian range of products. In 2017/2018 we were awarded by proveg to be Germany’s most veggie-friendly coffee shop chain.

We pay special attention to the reduction of additives in our products. Wherever it is possible for us, we do without preservatives and colours to guarantee the best possible taske. Therefore, our carefully selected tea diversity under Coffee Fellows‘ own brand „The T“ contains exclusively high-quality ingredients.

Where do we want to go?

Conscious nutrition for us primarily means to do one’s body something good because it will thank us. It is our goal to check on every product whether we can develop it „clean“. We not only focus on the ingredients, but also on the ecological effects of cultivation, livestock farming and transport routes. Thus we do something good not only to our body, but also to nature.