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LOBAL COFFEE PRODUCTION What G creates in excess of 23 million tons of waste per year, according to Goes sustainability researcher Gunter Pauli, from the pulp of fresh coffee cherries through the packaging that brings the Around... roasted beans to your favorite barista. How Coffee Waste Is At the consumer end of the supply chain, used coffee grounds are the most Fueling a Circular Economy visible example of this waste, the bit by Duncan Pike we dump in the bin after making each fresh brew. Most coffee lovers don’t give much thought to their spent grounds, but these black, sodden remains of pulverized coffee seeds have inspired the freshly caffeinated imaginations of scientists, entrepreneurs and social innovators from Melbourne to London to Seoul, sprouting into ideas of real The nonprofit Ground to Ground has enlisted the help of numerous coffeehouses to collect and distribute used coffee grounds. consequence for the coffee industry. Photo by Shane Genziuk continued on page 94 92 roast May | June 2016 93 WHAT GOES AROUND... | How Coffee Waste Is Fueling a Circular Economy (continued) SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ECONOMY Across the world, companies, researchers and engaged consumers are pioneering the next era of environmental sustainability. Enabled by policy changes and innovative technologies, a new paradigm known as the circular economy is emerging, one that holds the promise of reshaping the global economy and transforming our relationship with the natural world—the coffee tree very much included. The aim of the circular economy is to close the loop of our industrial system, reducing resource consumption and environmental pollution by transforming waste into input material for the next stage of production. “Sustainability has evolved significantly from the late 1990s to now,” says Nina Goodrich, executive director of GreenBlue, a nonprofit based in Charlottesville, Virginia, dedicated to the sustainable use of materials. “The most difficult aspect of sustainability has been integrating this into your business strategy, and the circular economy provides a better framework to help companies do that.” The simplest way to reuse used coffee grounds is to compost them. | Photo by Shane Genziuk The circular economy traces its origins back to “We have to move the 1970s, but it is only in the past few years that the concept has taken off, driven in large part by the away from what work of the U.K.-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation. folks call our linear As Goodrich explains it, a circular economy is based on the recognition that “we have to move away from economy of take- what folks call our linear economy of take-make- make-waste and waste and envision a next life for what currently is our waste. … It’s about how we build and make envision a next life things so that one person’s waste becomes another person’s input materials.” Photo courtesy of GreenBlue for what currently Over the past several decades, nongovernmental is our waste. … It’s organizations have gradually succeeded in persuading businesses to adopt a variety of about how we build and make things so sustainable practices that ultimately transformed that one person’s waste becomes another the specialty coffee industry. In 2012, for example, 40 percent of global coffee production was produced in person’s input materials.” compliance with a voluntary sustainability standard, up from 15 percent in 2008, according to the State —Nina Goodrich, GreenBlue of Sustainability Initiatives, an organization that reports on global sustainability projects. continued on page 96 94 roast May | June 2016 95 (continued) WHAT GOES AROUND... | How Coffee Waste Is Fueling a Circular Economy Waste coffee grounds have a high calorific value, meaning they produce a relatively large amount of energy when burned. | Photo courtesy of bio-bean At the same time, the way for-profit businesses view REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE sustainability has shifted. What began as a somewhat radical concept has evolved into a set of pragmatic managerial practices Shane Genziuk is founder of Ground to Ground, a social enterprise aligned with corporate objectives, something businesses of all sizes based in Melbourne, Australia, that educates coffee lovers about the have, for the most part, embraced. myriad wonders of used coffee grounds and connects them to cafes Transitioning to a circular economy will be a bigger challenge, that bag used grounds for easy pickup. He estimates he’s signed up but just as the global specialty coffee sector pioneered the adoption nearly 1,000 cafes, working in partnership with affiliates in London of sustainable production practices, it now stands poised to lead the and Austin, Texas. food sector in closing the loop of production to reduce resource costs Genziuk—who has a full-time job and a young family, and is and environmental damage. This concern for the environmental completing a Ph.D. in business administration—runs Ground to impact of coffee production isn’t just altruism or public spirit. Ground on passion and copious levels of caffeine. He is acutely Climate change and accompanying public concern present a real aware of the waste that goes into making his favorite drink, and threat to the viability of the coffee industry, and consumers are he wants to make a difference by leading a movement for social increasingly concerned about the environmental and social impacts change. When you educate consumers about the environmental of the coffee they consume. impact of coffee production, he says, they typically recognize their Clearly these challenges are multi-faceted and won’t be resolved own contributions to the global problem and, in turn, are motivated by any single movement, no matter how expansive, but adopting to become part of the solution. a circular economic business model, and thus reducing waste and Ground to Ground is, at its heart, an effort to encourage greater alleviating the environmental impacts of non-sustainably sourced recycling and reduce waste. Genziuk distributes educational input materials, could make a significant impact. Fortunately, material on his website and in person to cafes on the numerous and scientists, entrepreneurs and coffee lovers around the world are diverse uses for coffee grounds, such as compost, de-icing material, creating innovative ways to move the industry forward. continued on page 98 96 roast May | June 2016 97 (continued) WHAT GOES AROUND... | How Coffee Waste Is Fueling a Circular Economy Biomass pellets made from waste coffee grounds. | Photo courtesy of bio-bean hair dye and skin exfoliator, among others. Participating cafes agree to bag used grounds and offer them to customers free of charge, helping to divert organic waste from the landfill while sparking greater awareness about sustainability and the impact of individual consumption on the environment. MOVING BEYOND RECYCLING According to Zhu Dajian, director of the Institute of Governance for Sustainable Development at Tongji University in Shanghai, The new 20,000-square-foot bio-bean waste coffee recycling factory in London. Photo courtesy of bio-bean initiatives like Ground to Ground are important, but insufficient as a response to global environmental challenges. What sets the circular economy apart is the imperative not just to reduce impact, but to create new value while doing so. Only in this way can the shift away from the linear economy be realized. Dajian helped to create a circular economy strategy for the Chinese central government, which is struggling to manage the environmental damage produced by its rapid industrialization. The circular economy, he says, is “a new economic model that will reduce environmental impact and at the same time provide new jobs.” One of the key ideas of the circular economy draws its GreenBlue educates the public about composting at the Charlottesville City Market inspiration from industrial ecology, which studies the flow of in Virginia. The nonprofit started the first composting program in the city to take material and energy through industrial systems in a manner kitchen scraps, including used coffee grounds, to a local industrial composter. Photo courtesy of GreenBlue continued on page 100 98 roast May | June 2016 99 (continued) WHAT GOES AROUND... analogous to the natural ecosystem. Just as nature factory is designed to turn waste coffee into biodiesel, barbecue wastes nothing, recycling nutrients in a closed loop, so coals and biomass pellets. The company is even exploring the proponents of the circular economy aim to make use of all possibility of selling these pellets back to coffee shops to be waste as input for further value creation, doing away with used to roast coffee or boil water, which would create a true the idea of unwanted byproducts. circular economy, with waste becoming the input power for the In recent years, there has been a surge of companies production activities that created it. using coffee waste—both used grounds and discarded Biofuel produced from used coffee grounds is referred to coffee cherry pulp—to create new products, including as “second generation,” meaning it isn’t made from crops that paper, flour, 3D printer filament, charcoal, textiles and could otherwise be used as food. In a world of food scarcity, numerous others. One of the most widely touted examples where the production of fuel from corn and sugar cane has is bio-bean, a London firm that has attracted considerable led to skyrocketing food prices for the world’s poorest, second media and investor attention for its plan to collect waste generation biofuels are particularly promising. coffee grounds from the city’s cafes and convert them into biofuels. The concept is based on research from the THE CHALLENGES OF University of Nevada, which analyzed used grounds for oil content and found they contained on average about 10 to WASTE COLLECTION 15 percent oil by weight. Bio-bean is the first company in the world to Bio-bean recently partnered with Network Rail, which owns industrialize this process, and recently opened a and manages the U.K.’s railway network, to collect the coffee 20,000-square-foot factory in north London capable of waste generated by its six biggest stations.