Founded in 2013, Dark Woods was the first coffee roaster in England to become a certified B Corp. This shows their commitment to balancing profit with social and environmental responsibility. Over the past decade, the company grew from a small team of three to a workforce of 22.
The coffee industry faces many environmental issues, and Dark Woods wants to change that. The traditional coffee supply chain involves long distances, plastic packaging and high carbon emissions.
To address this, Dark Woods set several sustainability goals:
As part of these efforts, Dark Woods proposed a new idea: replacing single-use coffee bags with reusable containers for local food service customers. However, this idea came with challenges.
Dark Woods has collaborated with us for several years. When they shared their returnable container idea with local Growth Manager Gill Watson, she guided them to our circular economy support.
This support helped Dark Woods tackle their challenges by:
The comprehensive report gave Dark Woods data-backed insights, allowing them to confidently launch the project and measure its success.
Dark Woods’ journey continues. Building on their project's success, they are exploring other sustainability measures, including a composting project, low-carbon on-site energy generation and expanding the returnable container initiative to new locations.
The REBiz project is part-funded by the England European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.
