LONDON, UK — Initially launched at intu Chapelfield, Compost Café enables customers to collect packaged waste coffee grounds to use for compost. A wide-range of retailers within the centre have signed up to intu’s initiative in a bid to reduce waste.
Starbucks, Krispy Kreme and Caffè Nero are amongst the eight retailers to have donated their used coffee grounds which have then been repackaged and provided to customers for free at the Compost Café.
Compost Café forms part of intu’s innovation hub, Green Lab, which identifies new sustainability initiatives and rolls out ideas to address the environmental challenges that businesses and wider society face today.
Due to the success of the launch, intu was recently awarded the Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice, which recognises, rewards and promotes environmental best practice around the world. Compost Café has also now been launched at intu Potteries and will be rolled out across many of intu’s flagship destinations next year.
Alexander Nicoll, corporate responsibility director, for intu, said: “A number of retailers have their own recycling schemes but our nationwide initiative enables all retailers to get involved and to help create a sustainable future in a very easy way. As the owner of many of the UK’s largest and most popular shopping centres, we have a responsibility and a clear focus to make a meaningful difference to the communities we are part of. Through our Green Lab initiative, we can bring forward innovative new ideas like Compost Café, and roll them out across the UK for maximum impact. This approach is guided by our culture and our values, and has seen us exceed a significant number of our 2020 environmental targets already”
With over half a million tonnes of waste coffee grounds produced in the UK each year, intu’s initiative is just one way that the shopping centre landlord is managing its environmental impact. So far, 2.3 tonnes of waste has been diverted to compost recycling and over 1,500 bags of coffee grounds have been collected by customers at intu Chapelfield.
