In Port Melbourne, sustainability is a lived practice rather than just a trend, and that’s where you’ll find The Sustainable Coffee Company.
This forward-thinking enterprise goes beyond traditional coffee roasting, functioning as a key player in a broader network of environmental innovators dedicated to making a tangible difference to the planet while simultaneously providing premium coffee.
The Sustainable Coffee Company’s journey began in 2006, with a shared vision among its founders that was driven by Melbourne’s rich coffee culture.
“It really started with a couple of the directors wanting to get together with coffee in mind,” said Condon.
Over 18 years, the company has evolved into a beacon of sustainable practices within the specialty coffee industry.
“Our whole operation here runs on renewable energy,” said Condon.
The company’s mission involves sourcing coffee beans from sustainable farms, ensuring ethical labour practices, and minimising environmental impact throughout its production and supply chain.
The company also emphasises certifications and partnerships that align with sustainable and ethical standards, such as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, or organic certifications.
It also works on initiatives to reduce waste and improve the overall sustainability of its operations.
Operating from a headquarters that doubles as a sustainability hub, the company is co-located with Australian Ecosystems, a firm that specialises in biodiversity restoration.
This eye for sustainability and efficiency also carries through to the company’s manufacturing equipment and production processes.
“We roast all of our beans on site with a 30-kilogram Joper roaster and a 1kg electric Bullet batch roaster for testing blends and quality,” said Brendan Condon, managing director and co-founder, Australian Ecosystems.
“We also use a software package called Cropster to oversee the quality.
“And we have a fully electric delivery van and automated bag weighing machines for efficiency and speed
of production.”
Condon said running its own deliveries also provided the team with more face-to-face opportunities
with customers.
“In future we will look to upgrade this for a longer-range EV delivery van with a 400km plus range, and we expect a number of options meeting these criteria to become available in the EV market in the next 18 months,” he said.
“EV vans have tiny energy bills and very small maintenance and servicing bills and create little pollution compared to internal combustion engine delivery vehicles.”
As a smaller specialty coffee manufacturer, the Sustainable Coffee Company’s head roaster can have a more hands on approach in the process, which Condon said helps increase the quality of the product.
“In recent years we have automated our bag weighing and filling, which has sped up production and halved the time in this process,” said Condon.
The Sustainable Coffee Company now produces anywhere from four to five tonnes of coffee every month.
Condon said the company was always looking at new and innovative ways to produce its products while retaining the quality.
“We have a dedicated cupping room with high-quality coffee machines, a small batch electric roaster and precision weighing equipment to allow for daily cupping sessions to test blend quality, flavour and consistence,” he said.
“All of these investments speed up production, reduce wastage, and improve quality assurance.”
The enterprise ensures it sources environmentally friendly packaging for its products, especially as the sector makes progress on alternative options.
“Our boxes are from Echo Cartons, based in Braeside, Melbourne, and we collect and reuse these boxes from our café customers each week,” said Condon.
“We also use Baxter & Stubbs Printers who prints our labels using plant-based inks.”
Condon said the company spent years searching out the best options for packaging.
He said that over the years it has searched internationally to locate compostable packaging including plant-based packaging liners, right down to the breather valves on the bags.”
“With extra research we are able to finally locate a bag where any plastic was 100 per cent compostable and plant based. We also have plant-based compostable coffee pods,” he said.
Condon said investment in more sustainable and efficient machinery was another critical factor in reducing environmental impact while speeding up production.
“Investment in an auto-weighing machine has sped up bag filling and reduced the amount of time to fill bags by 50 per cent,” he said.
“We have designed and built a separate cupping room so that we have a separate controlled environment for blend development, cupping, testing and quality control.”
Condon said all investments by the company always weighed these critical factors into the equation.
“Our major investments are driven by our desire to decarbonise operations to tackle climate change and to reduce waste,” he said.
“Our most recent purchase was a fully electric delivery van, which allows us to deliver coffee to our clients using 100 per cent renewable energy.
“We have also invested in a water efficient Foodcube urban farm with a seating area that allows us to divert our coffee chaff, coffee grounds and staff kitchen food waste into food production.”
He said the team’s work around sustainability and efficiency extended beyond the factory floor and further into the community.
“We plant around a million trees and grasses to restore habitat and biodiversity each year,” said Condon.
Coffee, being a crop particularly vulnerable to climate change, is a central focus of its efforts.
“For us, everything is about sustainable practices; it is a non-negotiable,” said Condon.
The company actively measures and offsets its carbon emissions, a practice it’s been committed to for 16 years.
Its innovations don’t stop at energy and packaging. The urban farm in its car park has been a success story, producing hundreds of kilos of fresh produce for Oz Harvest over the past five years.
This produce is made possible by cycling organic waste, including food and coffee chaff, through its composting system, which then contributes to the urban farm’s output.
Consumers are increasingly seeking brands that align with their values, and The Sustainable Coffee Company has tapped into this trend, with each purchase supporting sustainable practices and contributing to a
greener future.
“Everyone needs to be taking action now, and genuine action in terms of eliminating plastic waste and eliminating carbon emissions from supply chains,” said Condon.
Another area where Condon said the company is looking to cut back on is its fossil fuel use.
“At the moment, almost 99 per cent of the world’s coffee roasters are running on gas, and we’ve been watching keenly to see if there’s any efficient or electric roasters coming onto the market,” he said.
“We are looking to decarbonise that part of our operation.”
Currently, Condon said, there were good electric options on the market. But not for the size they require.
“We are currently searching worldwide to find an efficient all electric roaster to allow us to move to efficient all electric roasting and swap polluting gas, a fossil fuel, out of our supply chain,” he said.
“Currently there are smaller electric roasters available worldwide such as the Bullet roaster and Bellwether Roasters, but their batch size is too small.
“Sometimes the final sustainability leaps are only possible when the technology becomes available.”
And this philosophy also applies to the company’s coffee bean procurement.
Most of the coffee coming through now is being sourced from the Bom Jesus farm in Brazil, which was recently voted the most sustainable coffee farm in Brazil by Globo Rural Magazine.
The coffee farm is a great example of the sustainable and environmental approach The Sustainable Coffee Company takes when forming partnerships.
“It’s an interesting story about next generation of farmers,” said Condon.
“This family has taken over what was originally a cattle farm, and they’ve restored large areas of rainforest and a coffee farm. They’ve already planted about 130 hectares of rainforest.”
Condon said the emphasis on sustainability wasn’t born from a commercial standpoint, but on being sustainable for a healthy industry moving forward.
“For a long time, it wasn’t really valued,” he said.
“We saw plenty of large tenders who had outstanding sustainability credentials and offerings, but price was the major driver.
“It all gravitated down to price, but I think now it is more important, and we’re seeing that with things like online purchases of our coffee.”
Condon said the rise in individual online orders also allowed for consumers to be far more particular about their buying habits and can source exactly what it is they are looking for.
“We have people who purchase online from all over Australia now, and they’re supporting these initiatives around sustainability,” he said.
“Having strong sustainability and social credentials in your coffee resonates with consumers.”
And this has been proven through the actions of consumers in the market.
“You’ve got more individual consumers who are looking to embed action on climate and biodiversity into their consumer choices, and that’s what we’re trying to do too,” he said.
“We’re trying to embed these initiatives like those being run by Oz Harvest, or through the Coffee
for Nature.”
Through The Sustainable Coffee Company’s sister company, Australian Ecosystems, and in partnership with Parks Victoria, Condon and the team have put words to action.
“Over the past five years we’ve been replanting forests down here in the Yarra Valley for two rare and threatened animals. The helmeted honey eater, and the Leadbeater’s Possum,” he said.
“Both of them are critically endangered, with less than a couple of 100 left of each species.”
Harkening back to the work on the Bom Jesus farm in Brazil, this conservation work is aiming to replace native land that was cleared for other reasons.
“There’s also been old dairy farms turned over for restoration and expansion of the habitat. In the past five years, we’ve planted about a million trees and shrubs through Australian ecosystems,” said Condon.
“We are growing 1000s of these shrubs to replant and to enrich the habitat.
“Every kilo of Coffee for Nature purchased through the Sustainable Coffee Company supports the growing and planting of one of these habitat trees.”
This is yet another example of how the brand leads by example by emphasising positive action around food security and climate biodiversity.
On top of this, being located so close to Australia’s coffee capital has provided plenty of further opportunity for the business.
“I think Melbourne’s coffee trade is about 30 tonnes a day, roughly,” said Condon.
“If 10 per cent of that was embedded on food security, then you’d be feeding 1000s of people. It’d be real. It’d scale real impact.”
The maturing of Australia’s love for coffee has also helped the company gain a stronger foothold with its high-quality coffee.
“The Australian market now has much more exacting standards around coffee quality,” said Condon.
“And you can’t trade off sustainability for quality, you must have the highest quality offering, as well as good sustainability and social impact.”