It has been another busy but happy year for us here at Glen Lyon Coffee and we have continued to strive to be a great business rather than a big one.
Here are 12 highlights of how we have been doing our best to put people and the planet first in 2022.
We became a B Corp!
We are so proud to not only have been accredited with B Corp status back in February this year but to have achieved a high score of 104.2 for our efforts to run a purpose led business.
We started a profit share scheme with our full-time staff
We’re an accredited Living Wage employer and offer year round contracts to all of our team. This year we took our commitment to good governance once step further by introducing a 10% share of our profit to our full-time staff.
We committed to 100% compostable packaging
The coffee industry has to face up to the challenge of finding sustainable solutions to the issue of waste. At Glen Lyon Coffee we have been playing our part by pioneering compostable coffee packaging in Scotland. In 2022 we committed to only using 100% home compostable bags.
We continue to support our main direct trade partner in Brazil
For the fourth year running we have committed to buying beans from Fazenda do Lobo to honour our commitment to building up long term trading partnerships with coffee farms around the world.
The Coffee Academy ran for a second year
In 2022 we continued to develop our partnership with our local school Breadalbane Academy by delivering two SCA-accredited coffee courses to pupils in their final few years of high school. This, together with volunteer placement in partner cafes, is helping support young people in our community with the skills and confidence they need to thrive in their first jobs.
We harnessed the power of sun with solar panels
In November 2021 we commissioned a bank of 16 solar panels on the roof of our Roastery. Since then the panels, together with battery storage, have generated and captured a total of 3126 KW/hours of energy. On sunny days they generate almost half of the energy our roastery uses in a single day.
We upgraded our electric car
Glen Lyon Coffee was an early adopter to the electric vehicle revolution by investing in a Nissan Leaf in 2017. This year we upgraded to a newer model with a range of 220 miles. This means that we can reach the majority of our wholesale accounts throughout Scotland on a single charge.
We are now home composting some of our waste
In October we built our own composting system in Glenlyon. We are mixing green garden and household waste with discarded coffee grinds, cardboard and paper from our roastery café to make our own compost. This is a slow process and we hope to have our first batch of garden compost ready by summer 2023.
We continued to raise money for Trees for Life
For the second year running we have been selling our positive impact True North coffee with £1 in each bag going to their tree planting and rewilding campaign.
As a result of these sales, together with our corporate partnership, we have raised £1855.60 for Trees for Life in 2022 (as of 20 December).
We planted 333 trees to help offset our carbon footprint
This year we made our contribution to offsetting Glen Lyon Coffee’s carbon footprint by planting a total of 333 trees in the Scottish Highlands.
We planted a mix of native trees on the community land at Dun Coillich in Highland Perthshire as well as Inverness-shire with Trees for Life.
Fundraising for Ukraine
Following Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 we held a fundraising gig in the summer that raised over £500 for local Scottish charities supporting Ukrainian refugees. More recently we have also used our roastery as a drop off point for people to donate second hand sleeping bags to help people in Ukraine to get through the winter.
Supporting our community
We are thrilled to have hosted Aberfeldy’s amazing Repair Café throughout the year meeting once a month at our roastery, and for the second year running we will be opening our doors on Christmas day to provide free coffee, cake and a warm welcome for anyone in our community who finds themselves in need of companionship this Christmas.
We’re proud to always be progressing our sustainable goals, and look forward to going even further in 2023. Happy new year!
