SDG Project work: Daffee

Welcome to our blog, let us introduce ourselves and our project.

We are Maria, Anne, Sofia, & Julia, four women with different (international) backgrounds. We are Greek, Finnish and Dutch and our studies vary from business administration, social work, and international business law. And what got us together is our shared interest in sustainability. Excited and full of motivation we joined the SDG traineeship and are now at week 10 out of 15 in our project at Daffee. Every Monday we come together at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute or the company Daffee. Hereafter we will tell you more about Daffee and the project!

Daffee

Daffee is a pioneering company committed to sustainability and innovation in the coffee industry. Their mission is to provide a coffee alternative that tastes great and contributes to a greener future for our planet. Daffee is based in Amsterdam and produces an innovative beverage made of date seeds that is healthy and caffeine-free. How Daffee contributes to sustainability is that it uses an upcycled source for its products as the date seeds would otherwise be thrown away.

Our project

We started our SDG traineeship with a couple of trainings, that were useful to start our journey with Daffee. The trainings provided knowledge on how to approach this project as consultants and learn better collaborative skills. By making a proper planning at the beginning, we avoided getting lost in scientific literature or wasting too much time. We started doing research about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and the supply chain of date seeds. We looked into various other studies, and after a discussion with our supervisor as well as Daffee we chose to focus on the element of water usage when preparing an LCA. Along the way, we decided to create a comparison of the supply chains of Daffee and regular coffee including the dry- and wet method. Understanding the environmental impact, especially in terms of water usage, from the moment the date seeds are planted to when the final Daffee bag reaches the consumer, are all compared to the traditional coffee process.

When examining the sustainable development goals we used the SDG assessment tool to determine which goals are the most relevant for Daffee and its water usage. SDG 6, 9, 12, and 17 (see images below) are the most relevant ones for Daffee and its goal to reduce its water usage in the whole supply chain.

The most challenging part of this project has probably been tracking and precisely calculating the water usage throughout the whole supply chain. This is why we are also reaching out to other specialists and professionals. We will bundle our knowledge and skills to make the best out of this project!

Are you curious to try something new or just want to support a good cause? Try Daffee!

Check their website / socials https://daffee.eu @Daffee.nl

If you would like to be kept updated about our journey with Daffee, make sure to connect with them on LinkedIn.

Thanks for reading our blog and feel free to reach out to us if you have any further questions.