Coffeefrom | Coffeefrom

Name of the submitted project or idea (in English or both English and your language)

Coffeefrom
URL of a video introducing the work（under 5 minutes）
Detailed explanation of the submitted project or idea (in English or both English and your language)

Coffeefrom is an innovative start-up with a social vocation, an innovative project that gives new life to spent coffee grounds by creating new innovative materials.
Coffeefrom transforms spent coffee grounds from the food industry into recycled and biobased thermoplastic materials, giving new life to material generally considered waste and consequently reducing the input of new raw materials into the plastic supply chain.
To date, Coffeefrom has created three different materials, each with specific characteristics and to exemplify the possible applications of its materials, Coffeefrom has created a few design products, such as the Coffeefrom Coffee Cup.
How does your work address the 3 P’s (for Planet, for People, for Profit) for Sustainability?

Coffeefrom aims to help reduce the carbon footprint of the coffee industry, together with lessening the carbon footprint of the plastic industry.
Producing Coffeefrom materials not only extends the coffee waste life (thus reducing the CO2 emissions that are normally generated when discharging coffee in landfills) but also helps reduce CO2 in the plastic supply chain because our materials require less virgin fossil plastic materials to be produced.
Our aim is in line with the European waste policy, which aims to contribute to the circular economy, by extracting high-quality resources from waste.
Coffeefrom also stays true to its social vocation, as we create social impact through the inclusion of fragile workers in logistics activities and collaboration with social companies and projects.
Where (country, region, etc.) have you primarily carried out your project?

Italy
What is the timeline your project has taken place over?

2022 - present
Keywords

#circulareconomy #bioplastic #biomaterials
If you have a website for your submitted project or idea, please provide the URL

https://coffeefrom.it/en/home/
If you have a social media account for your submitted project or idea, please provide the URL

https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffeefrom/
Special Prize Question 1: Is there a mechanism in place to inherit culture and industry as assets for people living in that area 100 or even 1000 years from now?

Coffeefrom, is changing the approach of food companies in EU by proposing a new circular way of managing their post-production and post-consumer waste.
Coffeefrom wants to create industrial symbiosis to bring impact results upstream and downstream of the industrial process, to impact on a large scale, and to change industry practice.
The ultimate goal is to extend this contamination model to more industries, not just the food industry, causing more waste to be repurposed and increasing the amount of waste introduced into materials.
Coffeefrom wants to change practices for both companies and consumers so that a culture of caring for the products that are created and purchased is created, a culture that values the products generated by cross-industry contamination and a vision of circularity.
Special Prize Question 2: What is the positive impact on biodiversity? Is the project creating a cycle not just from a human-centered perspective but for the entire ecosystem?

Through the upcycling of used coffee, Coffeefrom is able to reduce the environmental impact of both the coffee waste, that generally goes into landfills, and the impact of the plastic chain, as less virgin plastic is required to produce our compounds.
This impact is extended to the entire environment, as there is less production of CO2, and less pollution of land and sea caused by fossil plastic.
Special Prize Question 3: Are you enabling new forms of collaboration with others? New forms of collaboration might include cross-industry cooperation, co-creation with consumers, or role transformations within the supply chain.

Our project is based on social responsibility values. For us, the circular economy is a perfect model to create job opportunities for fragile workers, directly involved in the logistics and packaging activities. We also collaborate with other local social enterprises and start-ups in order to create a broader positive impact on the community.
Together with our partners, we study, experiment, and evaluate new forms and applications so that our innovation can be increasingly sustainable and technically performing. We always work with the idea that we can contaminate industrial practice, in order to create a new circular production model.