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Category: Sustainability
Green Ocean Coffee reintroduces Oysters into Dublin Bay
We are thrilled to announce the launch of our latest Green Ocean environmental project to re-introduce native European Flat oysters back into Dublin Bay after an absence of almost 200 years.
The objective of this project is to establish an oyster brood stock so that the stock of oysters will naturally expand and regenerate forming reefs in the environs of Dublin Bay. Oysters are a keystone species in terms of promoting habitat biodiversity and stabilising the sea floor to allow sea grass and other sea weeds to propagate. This in turn provides an excellent environment for fish and other marine life to spawn and seek shelter.
Ultimately this project is about using oysters as a nature based climate solution to deliver the following benefits :
- Oyster reefs protect the coast line against storm surge
- Increasing atmospheric carbon sequestration as seagrass and oysters are significant carbon sinks. Seagrass absorbs carbon 35 times faster than an equivalent area of rain forest.
- An oyster filters 190 litres of water a day of algae and nutrients which improves water quality allowing sun light to penetrate the sea floor.
- Oyster reefs are ideal nursery grounds for fish and other marine life which is essential in enhancing biodiversity through habitat restoration.
Working alongside UCD marine science department we sourced just under 600 mature oysters from Tralee for deployment in ‘Oyster Garden’ baskets in Malahide, Poolbeg and Dun Laoghaire Marinas. The oyster gardens are suspended from the marina pontoon walk ways which are an ideal location to maximise their spawning potential. A female oyster releases up to 1.5m eggs into the water every July / August. The fertilised eggs called ‘spat’ attach themselves to any hard surface (including other oysters) and reach maturity in 3 years and the reproduction process commences.
Over the coming years we hope to expand this project with more oyster gardens and more locations to improve the project’s efficacy.
As part of the funding solution for this project, we have launched a new Green Ocean Coffee blend called Kish, named after the iconic lighthouse that guards Dublin Bay to the east. Kish is a blend of speciality grade arabica coffee beans from Columbia and Brazil roasted to a medium / light profile. It is beautiful coffee that is idea for any café or office that wants premium quality with transparent sustainability credentials but remains competitively priced.
Getting to this stage of the project has only been possible with the support of many organisations including Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Dun Laoghaire Marina, Malahide Marina, Poolbeg Marina, The Marine Institute, The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council, Dublin City Council and the EPA. We are so appreciate of all the encouragement and facilitation we have received and this ambitious project would not have been possible without this.
If you would like to find out more about Green Ocean Coffee and our other project in Clew Bay then please visit the Green Ocean Coffee website on https://greenoceancoffee.ie/
So if you would like to get involved, then the easiest way is to choose Green Ocean Coffee but if you would like to get more involved then you can sponsor an oyster garden or volunteer to look after some oysters. One of the really great aspects of this project is its accessibility for anybody to get involved and find out more. Follow us on our social media platforms on Tik Tok and Instagram to see what’s currently happening.
Launching Green Ocean Coffee
At Watermark, we are committed to running our business in a way that minimises our environmental impact. This is an unrelenting process that requires a lot of thought and vigilance but we’re up for the challenge!! As a person who has always been deeply interested in the natural world, I feel that our business has an opportunity to do more than just minimise our environmental impact in a way that is meaningful, transparent, and measurable.
From Woodland Coffee (and 27,000 trees later)
Buoyed on by the success and response to our Woodland Coffee initiative, launched in 2020, I felt that I wanted to do a project that involves my love of coffee and the sea. After 3 years, which involved a lot of research, planning, scrapping plans, starting over, more research, negotiating, refinement of ideas, the output of this process is a new coffee brand called Green Ocean Coffee.
Making Green Ocean Coffee a reality!
While getting to this stage has not been straightforward; the idea behind Green Ocean Coffee is simple; for each bag of Green Ocean Coffee purchased, 1 square metre of seabed will be restored to promote the development of oyster and sea grass reefs in Clew Bay Co Mayo, Ireland. We have partnered with Clew Bay Oyster Co-Op to restore 180 hectares of ancient fishing grounds in Clew Bay which are now closed to fishing and are designated as special areas of conservation (SAC). The restoration involves creating a habitat that allows for oysters, and in turn seagrass to re-establish. This habitat is wonderful for expanding biodiversity as oyster reefs and seagrass beds provide excellent nursery grounds for juvenile fish and marine invertebrates. Below is a video introduction on Green Ocean Coffee. There is a lot more information on the website www.greenoceancoffee.ie (Click here to link)
The Coffee itself
We have selected a different style of coffee for our Green Ocean blends favouring more medium and lighter roasts that are a combination of single origin and multi farm blends. The coffee is sourced directly from the coffee farmer, and we have chosen these based on quality but also for the progressive production and sustainability values that the farmers represent. I invite you to read about these farmers like Charles Mutwiri in Kenya who is a changemaker in terms of developing a profitable business that provide opportunities for his community while also championing female participation in the coffee industry.
Apart from amazing coffee, this is a truly wonderful project on so many levels. The oceans play such an important role in regulating the earth’s temperature and in absorbing atmospheric carbon. Sea grass and shellfish play a pivotal role in sequestering carbon at a speed which is unrivalled by the rainforest or anywhere else in the natural world. A healthy coastal habitat is critical in decarbonising food production and provides a focal point for tourism that benefits everyone.
We have had tremendous help from our friends in Ocean Divers, namely Monica Schaefer, Willie Siddel and Brian Murphy, Geoff Robinson in Bord Iascaigh Mhara and of course Alex Blackwell and Michael Mulloy of Clew Bay Oyster Co-Op. Their enthusiasm and knowledge have helped make Green Ocean Coffee a reality.
Green Ocean Coffee is a positive environmental action initiative aimed at ‘changemaker’ businesses that want amazing speciality grade coffee but also want to make a meaningful and measurable difference. If you think Green Ocean Coffee would suit you and your office or cafe, then we would love to hear from you so we can arrange a coffee tasting and you can find out more about us and Green Ocean Coffee. If you just want a bag to try at home then click here for the shop. I really hope that you can get behind this super project and be apart of this exciting journey.
David Lawlor, CEO
Like to get involved? This is why you should!
How we reduced our electricity usage by over 50%
With 47% of Ireland’s electricity generation in October 2022 coming from wind generation (as reported by the Irish Times) it does seem as if we’re getting somewhere in moving away from our reliance on fossil fuels. This is truly fantastic news and hopefully we can improve on this in the months and years ahead.
At Watermark we believe that individual action is also essential in playing our part in tackling climate change and we are ardent advocates that every action makes a difference, no matter how small.
We installed solar panels on our warehouse roof in July 2021, the motivation for making this investment at the time was not to lower our reported carbon footprint, as we were already using green electricity from Airtricity. Nor was it financial, as the payback at the time was 8 years. The motivating rationale was to do with the sustainable concept of ‘additionality’. By installing solar panels, we are reducing our reliance on the national electricity grid allowing this green electricity to be used elsewhere in the economy reducing the requirement for fossil fuel to power electricity generation.
On our most recent Airtricity bill, we have reduced the electricity we used from the grid by 50.3% over the 6 months from April to October 2022 when compared to April to October 2021. This gives us great satisfaction. While this single reduction is insignificant in the overall scheme of COP and the Paris Agreement, imagine if most businesses in Ireland were able to achieve a similar reduction? It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination!
The Cost of Coffee
Those involved in the coffee trade over the past 2 years and have seen gyrations to the coffee price that were previously inconceivable. The worldwide supply of coffee has reduced due to damage from late frosts in Brazil in May 2020 combined with the covid difficulties in productivity and shipping. Brazil who are the world’s largest coffee producer, at 2.4m tonnes, has more impact on coffee price and supply that any other producer.
The net effect of this is a reduction in available supply of coffee for export and accordingly a steady and continuous rise in green bean coffee prices. In July 2019 the traded price for arabica green beans was USD$2.99 per kg, this had increased to USD$5.84 by February 2022. For those of us in the coffee importing countries, this is a significant price increase which makes us look at our own businesses and decide what we need to do to stay competitive while offering our customers an attractive proposition.
But before we blame climate change and covid for our woes, it’s worth looking at this from the coffee producing nations’ perspective. Up until 2019, there was an oversupply of green bean coffee (primarily from Brazil). As a result, the price of coffee was steadily falling; in economic terms, coffee is considered to have ‘inelastic demand’ (as the price of green bean coffee drops this does not lead to similar increases in demand) but the price is hugely influenced by the amount of supply. The reasons for the steady price decrease occurred due to the rapid rise in production capacity (in Brazil), slower growth in coffee consumption (most people don’t drink more coffee because it’s cheaper), excess power by the major coffee roasters and a depreciation of the Brazilian Real against the US Dollar.
The net effect of this was calamitous for smaller producing countries (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Honduras, Columbia etc) who are almost always in the developing world and are hugely dependent on exporting green bean coffee to fund the basic running of their countries. For the farmers themselves, this resulted in communities adopting ‘coping strategies’ that include reducing the maintenance on coffee plants, reduced expenditure on health, education and so on. The governments of coffee producing countries did try and club together to set up minimum price per kg but these have largely been unsuccessful due to the temptation to break ranks.
So in May 2020, the Brazilian coffee crop has a fright, the challenge of Covid put pressure on previously efficient supply channels and the western coffee drinking world had to stop and rethink their strategy. Smaller coffee producing counties come back into focus as the prices look reasonable. At Watermark we are no different, we launched our Tibradden single origin blend from Kenya at the beginning of the year and the coffee has been a great addition to our Woodland Coffee range.
Who knows what will happen over the next few years but what has happened recently to the price of coffee probably reflects an inherent fairness. The price increases seen of recent times merely reflects a more equitable situation whereby growers are getting a better deal.
Moving to Solar Power Generation
Last July we installed solar panels on the roof of our office and warehouse in Citywest. With only 8 months of data so far (and most of this during the Autumn and Winter) we have generated almost 11 megawatts of electricity to power our operations. This equates to almost 5 tonnes of CO2 being avoided if we were using electricity from the grid and represents over 50% of our electricity needs for the period. We expect this to increase further as the Summer time approaches.
This is a small amount of C02 prevention in the global scheme of things but it’s a significant one for the individual or a small business like ours. We are very happy with it and pleased to have made the investment necessary.
We are continually looking at ways to make our business operations less damaging to our environment. Our Woodland Coffee initiative gives our customers the opportunity to make small decisions that have a real and lasting impact on climate change, would you like to make a difference with us?
#onesmallchange #woodlandcoffee
Woodland Coffee plants 27,000 trees in Co Limerick
After 3 years of planning, we have planted out our first Woodland Coffee plantation in Pallasgreen, Co Limerick. In November, our forestry partner SWS, planted our mixed woodland of between 26,000 and 27,000 trees of Alder, Birch, Spruce, Oak and Beech trees. The idea behind Woodland Coffee is really simple, each case of coffee funds the planting of a tree in Ireland so your decision today to choose Woodland Coffee has a long term benefit in terms carbon sequestration, enhancing biodiversity and creating a more sustainable future. Please watch the video and let us know if you would like to get involved.
#sustainability #sustainablecoffee #woodlandcoffee
Moving to Solar Power
We are really excited about getting solar panels installed on our building here in Citywest. We are putting in 64 panels measuring 1.5 square meters each that will generate over 23,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. This is about 70% of our yearly usage. The electricity generated from the solar panels equates to a saving of about 9.8 tonnes of CO2 per year when compared to electricity generated using fossil fuels.
For the past number of years we have been sourcing our electricity from Airtricity, which is 100% wind generated electricity; so theoretically the installation of solar panels does not reduce our carbon footprint. It does however reduce the requirement to generate electricity from fossil fuels elsewhere on our island as our lower usage from the electricity grid reduces the dependence on fossil fuel power generation, that’s a thought that makes us very happy!
At Watermark, we are continually looking at ways as to how we can make better quality decisions to reduce our impact on our environment. Be it through our Woodland Coffee initiative, lowering the impact of waste from the coffee we sell or installing solar power. Each small decision makes a difference; Would you like to make a difference with us?
