Our Coffee Is Takeaway. Our Responsibility Isn’t.

Good coffee shouldn't leave a bad footprint.

When I started building Beanarchy, our specialty coffee bike in Malta, I knew from the beginning that being a takeaway coffee business came with a contradiction I couldn't ignore.

We're starting on a bike. Most of our drinks will leave with you. That means cups, lids, napkins and packaging — and potentially a lot of waste.

I didn't want sustainability to become something we thought about later, once the business was bigger. If Beanarchy was going to create waste from day one, then I wanted to make better choices from day one too.

That's how I found Tree Greens Malta and its founder, Andrew.

A business built because something needed to change

Andrew founded Tree Greens in 2018 after becoming increasingly frustrated by the amount of litter generated by the catering industry and the impact it was having on Malta's countryside and seas.

As Andrew explains:

“Over the years we were becoming more and more aware and frustrated by the large amount of litter, mainly from the catering industry, that was literally suffocating our countryside and our seas.”

Traditional food packaging can remain in the environment for years, with consequences that go far beyond an overflowing bin.

Tree Greens was created to offer businesses another option: reusable packaging where possible, alongside single-use products made from natural materials as alternatives to conventional plastic-based food containers.

That philosophy immediately made sense for Beanarchy.

Yes, it costs us more.

I'm not going to pretend sustainability is always the cheapest option. The products I've chosen from Tree Greens cost Beanarchy more than some of the mainstream alternatives available to us.

And I'm okay with that.

When you're starting a small business, every cent matters. It would be very easy to look at two cups, see that one costs less and choose it. But the cheapest option on an invoice isn't necessarily the cheapest option for everything else.

Beanarchy is beginning its life primarily as a takeaway coffee bike. If we're successful, we're going to put a lot of cups into people's hands.

So the packaging we choose matters.

I'd rather accept a slightly higher cost and know that we've actively looked for a more responsible solution than save a few cents while ignoring the amount of waste we're creating.

More than the cup in your hand

Another reason I liked Tree Greens' approach is that the thinking doesn't end with the material itself.

According to Tree Greens, its products are CO₂ compensated, with part of the money invested into projects around the world aimed at reducing CO₂ emissions.

No takeaway business is going to become perfectly sustainable simply by changing its cups. I don't think businesses should pretend otherwise.

But we can make better decisions.

We can question what we buy.

We can choose suppliers whose values make sense to us.

And we can accept that sometimes doing things differently costs a little more.

Small bike. Bigger responsibility.

Beanarchy was created around doing things our own way.

That applies to the coffee we serve, the things we create and the suppliers we choose to work with.

We're small. Very small, actually. We're starting with one coffee bike and a slightly unreasonable amount of ambition.

But being small isn't an excuse to wait before caring about our impact.

If anything, this is the easiest moment to establish what kind of business I want Beanarchy to become.

That's why I'm happy to be partnering with Andrew and Tree Greens Malta from the beginning.

Better coffee. Better choices. Less unnecessary waste.

Coffee. Chaos. Fuel. — just with a little less chaos left behind. 🌱☕