Big News! We Just Got "Good Travel Scan" Certified! 🎉

Forge Valley Roasters is officially participating in an international pilot scheme, run by the North York Moors National Park in partnership with VisitBritain! This pilot scheme is about making tourism more sustainable, improving the North York Moors and improving our business processes too.

The first step in this pilot was to subject ourselves to an audit covering 10 different categories. This was nerve wracking because we're pretty small and still quite new, but I'm very proud to say that we achieved a Good Travel Scan certification with an overall score of 65%!

It's a first, solid, step toward publicly challenging ourselves to do good for our community, our amazing team, and the planet. Over the coming year we'll be focusing on systematic improvements to better ourselves and we'll use the audit as a framework for the approach.

What is the Good Travel Scan? It's a mostly self-led audit along with an in-depth look at how we operate and an independent, assessor led, review. It also involves working and connecting with other local businesses, swapping ideas and learning from each other to improve things over time.

The stuff we're doing well?

Good Employment: 92%! This one makes me incredibly happy! It really shows our commitment to Good Jobs Institute strategy – making sure our team is well looked after, has fair opportunities, and loves coming to work. Happy team, happy customers!

Caring for Culture: 100%! We live and breathe (literally) the rich heritage of our area, so hitting full marks here feels absolutely brilliant. Protecting and promoting the local vibe is a huge part of who we are.

Where we need to improve?

Caring for Climate: 38% – Oof, this one's a kick in the beans (pun intended). The biggest reason for this lower score is the unavoidable fact that we ship our green coffee from all over the world. It's a huge challenge, but one we're tackling head-on. We're actively researching and planning how to reduce and offset this impact, so watch this space!

Management & Information: 50% – This score tells us we need to get even better at tracking and communicating our sustainability efforts. We've got loads of ideas brewing (pun intended) for how to streamline our internal systems and shout louder about all the good stuff we're doing.

Honestly, getting this certification is truly just the beginning of our sustainability adventure. We're incredibly proud of what we've achieved already, but we know there's so much more to do. We're chuffed to be working hand-in-hand with the NYMNP and our fellow champion producers to make a real difference.

What are your thoughts on businesses stepping up for sustainability, especially in coffee? Let me know below!