A Bona Fide Business Issue Jim Corbett, Bewley’s Limited
forcing farms out of production and exacerbating the supply situation for our raw materials.
Bewley’s Limited is the largest importer, roaster and supplier of fresh coffee in Ireland and the first coffee company to import Fairtrade-certified coffee into the country in the 1990s. In 2009 it became Ireland’s first fully certified carbon neutral coffee company. Managing director Jim Corbett talks about its progress
For Bewley’s managing director Jim Corbett, sustainability is very much a business issue, and not simply one of corporate social responsibility, so difficult economic times should not deter companies.
“I think if you are going to approach sustainability from a CSR or PR point of view you will probably fail,” he says. “Here at Bewley’s we’ve always approached it as a bona fide business issue – and that doesn’t go away in a recession. Bewley’s approach to sustainability started five or six years ago when it became clear to us that climate change was already affecting producer countries and producer farms in those areas where we purchase tea and coffee.”
“Central America, South America, Africa were already seeing the effects of escalating temperatures, lack of rainfall and changes in climatic conditions. This was in many cases
In looking at what we could do as Bewley’s to improve that, we started examining our entire supply chain from a sustainability point of view and asked how sustainable it would be over the next 10 or 20 years. We became quite concerned at the outcome of our investigations.” As a result, in 2005 the company began to examine how it could reduce its impact on the environment. “The easiest starting point is to simply reduce your energy consumption and that has become easier from a P&L point of view because of the rising costs of electricity and gas,” says Corbett. The company purchases all its energy from renewables company Energia.
“But sustainability is about much more than simply cost-saving. It is about looking at the risk items in your business, at your approach to risk management,” he explains. “If you take a long enough view, the effects of climate change and the effect it will have on consumer behaviour, on your cost structures, you end up having to look very hard at sustainability, and your carbon footprint is an ideal way to measure that.”
“In our case we decided in 2008 to go carbon neutral, and 2009 was our first year of being fully certified as carbon neutral. It’s been quite a journey.” The company has since retained its carbon neutral status through a so-called net zero process. “Once we had reduced our carbon footprint to what was economically feasible for the business, we then purchased carbon offsets to reduce our calculated carbon footprint to a net zero position,” says Corbett. “It is not something everybody may choose to do, but it does sharpen our focus as a business in terms of measurement of the impact our business is having, and it has changed the way we look at business processes and investment opportunities. We now look at them also in the context of what it will do to our carbon footprint.”
“We have gone through a journey in relation to carbon offsets. In 2009 we invested in a fir tree plantation in Norway, but on reviewing that after the first year we felt that the Norwegians probably didn’t need our money. So we looked harder in 2010 for projects which would be closer to our own supply chain. In 2010 our offsets were purchased from a hydroelectric scheme in Peru and a wind farm project in Nicaragua – well- known coffee producing countries. We felt it was important that money we were spending on purchasing offsets would actually be going into economies where it would benefit our supply chain.”
In 2011, Bewley’s moved even closer to the ground and this year’s tranche of offsets is being purchased directly from a coffee cooperative in Peru which has a new carbon fix rated reforestation project. “Again, we’re buying coffee from this cooperative and paying the money for the carbon offset, so we see that as closing the loop fully in relation to Bewley’s obligations to its supply chain.”
Bewley’s put itself forward to take part in the Carbon Disclosure Project. “It has been very interesting for us because it allows us to benchmark what we’re doing against other companies,” says Corbett. ”You do get a better understanding of how companies are thinking about this, and in my experience very few companies are doing this because they have to. I think most companies who have gone into this process find that it actually gives them a net positive result on the bottom line. So it is a business positive activity, and engaging with other managers in the same thought space, through the CDP, brings us new ideas and new thinking.”
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