SUSTAINABILITY
Our goal is to be the most sustainable coffee festival in the world, not just talk about it. We believe that if we can’t produce an event without causing damage to the environment, people and community around it, then it’s not worth doing.
But how are we actually doing it?
REDUCE
Reducing our impact is the foundation for our sustainability platform. We want to put our money where our mouth is and implement meaningful initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint.
-
This year we have implemented a C02 budget for our production team. This means that they have to take into consideration not only the financial cost of a decision or activation, but also the carbon emission cost. We hope this will be a more concrete way of ensuring we reduce our overall emissions, but also a way to more deeply integrate sustainably conscious decisions into our processes.
-
Our festival is fully vegetarian and free from dairy milk. With just this one small change we are able to cut our emissions by up to 75% compared to serving meat and using cow milk for coffee beverages.
This doesn't, however, mean boring sallads and strange cappuccinos. In 2026, we will have the best chefs, bakers, baristas and caterers pushing themselves to deliver vegetarian food so tasty that even your grill loving uncle won't miss it.
-
We have a multitiered approach to reducing waste at the event. This includes removing single use items from the festival and implementing waste allocation and sustainable signage policies. But all of that is esoteric – the simple version is that if we don’t bring in items that have to be disposed of, there will be much less waste.
Being in Sweden we are lucky to have a great recycling system and we will work with our waste management partners to ensure the most efficient and thorough recycling system possible.
-
Our goal is to totally cut out single-use items from our festival. This starts with a strict policy against paper cups, plates and cutlery. We have re-usable ceramic cups and beautiful plates and cutlery that operate in a circular system throughout the whole festival. We are also working with exhibitors to reduce or remove any single use items, material or samples from the festival as well.
-
One of the absolute biggest impacts of hosting events is the emissions from travelling to the event. By choosing a centrally accessible venue by public transport we hope to make it easier to travel to the event by train, bus, tram than by car and therefore eliminate huge amounts of carbon emissions from the event.
-
One of the most wasteful parts of a live event or festival is all of the single use signage, material and periphery that is needed to communicate and brand a space. We know we can do this better, which is why we strive to produce ZERO non-reusable or non-recyclable event material.
-
HOW DO WE MAKE OUR MARKETING MATERIAL AS SUSTAINABLE AS OUR FESTIVAL?
Having started as a scrappy little event company, run out of a 30m2 apartment in Gothenburg - we have always relied heavily on word of mouth and believing that if we produce the best events, then people will want to come back to them.So, even as we grow and extend our marketing campaigns a bit - we are pretty allergic to wasteful marketing campaigns - be that money, time, energy or wasted materials.
What are we doing?
In 2025 we relied on primarily digital channels, direct outreach and stakeholder engagement - but we do have some physical material that is printed and distributed. So, this year we partnered with Billes Tryckeri here In Gothenburg to better understand how we can make more sustainable decisions with our printed materials.What did we learn?
Transport is a huge factor in the environmental Impact of paper, often vastly outweighing the actual carbon cost of the product so you need to know exactly where your paper comes from.The type of Energy used both at the mill and printers can make a huge difference in the carbon Impact - so choosing responsible and traceable suppliers is really important.
The Ink usage per sheet is relatively insignificant compared to the other factors involved in producing and transporting flyers.
What are we doing?
We chose a paper product called G Print - milled In Grycksbo, Sweden - giving us full accountability of the carbon emission and transport cost of every sheet of paper. We also have a dense climate report from our printers themselves - all of which they offset through buy back schemes. Lastly, we have revised our purchasing format and quantities to reduce waste, deliveries and packaging Impacts.The Data
(Calculated on 20,000 A6 flyers + 2000 A3 posters)Paper Production*: 9.768kg c02
Transport from mill to Billes 4.224kg C02
Delivery from Billes to OEA 2.745kg C02
Distribution 5.225kg C02
Total: 23.262kg C02
Per Flyer 0,81g per flyer
Per Poster 3,45g per poster
* Includes electricity usage at paper production
** Includes transport from mill to printers, printers to NCF and our local distribution.
In 2025, we used 600 tablewear sets for over 3,000 attendees without generating any single-use waste from our food service.
CHALLENGE
-
We encourage everyone who attends the festival to bring their own cup to Nordic Coffee Fest. Not only is it great practice for day-to-day coffee purchases, but we will have rinsing stations throughout the festival for you to clean your cup between samples.
-
We are going to almost completely remove trash bins from the event except for in two locations: the food court and exhibitor services. This means we need your help in recycling any waste that you encounter, receive or bring with you.
-
The difference in emissions between driving from Stockholm to Gothenburg and taking the train is roughly 150kg c02. We want to push everyone to consider how they can travel to the event without relying on car or flights. Just 30% of people changing their habits from car to train can make a HUGE difference in our event’s total emissions.
Our venue is located literally a stones throw from Central station, meaning that there is no excuse to not take a bus or tram to the event. And while we know that Gothenburg is not known for it’s mild, predictable weather we have some plans to make your travel to the event easy, pleasant and fun regardless of the weather.
-
This year we are working hard with our supplier to reduce transport costs, use more sustainable fuels and materials and help us to build a case for how easy it can be to create a more sustainable event.
-
We already diligently track as many inputs into the event as possible. For those enviro-nerds reading this, we measure between scope 2-3. Specifically we define our impact as any emission or impact created that wouldn’t have been created had we not staged the event.
We are always finding small little holes in our data gathering and challenge ourselves from year to year to get more comprehensive and accurate data about our emissions.
-
A big part of producing more sustainability starts with the commitment and a mentality. We want to stand behind our words and so we spend a lot of time and money on not only solving these problems but making the experience as seamless as possible for all of you. This might include finding new suppliers for sustainable initiatives, building rinsing stations or dish washing stations where they don’t exist or paying extra staff to run dishes. All of these ideas cost time and money – but then again the consequences of not doing anything are pretty expensive as well…
We have realised that we can’t control everything, so we also want to challenge ourselves, our partners and you to help us create a more sustainable event (and world).
Despite growing the festival significantly in 2025, we only produced 109 kg of general waste.
That’s a 75% reduction from 2024!
INSPIRE
We hope that our initiatives don’t stop when the festival ends, but we can be a small source of inspiration of to show how easy it can be to buy better coffee, produce cleaner events or make more sustainable choices.
-
We want our choice of food and drink vendors to first and foremost impress you with the quality. That it also happens to be local and sustainable can be an added plus – because we love food and drink too much for it to be bland.
-
We hope that by communicating as clearly as possible and attaching environmental costs to different aspects and actions within the festival we can inspire people to think a bit more carefully about the environmental impact of their choices. From their commute to the festival, to choice of hotel to choice of daily coffee – just a few small changes can make a big difference if we all start taking action.
-
Sustainability isn’t just about carbon emissions – it is also about people. We produce coffee events, and that isn’t more important than our staff, volunteers or the community in which we work. As an employer we pay above living wages, provide pension, wellness benefits and have implemented a four day work week. As event people, we ensure that all staff and volunteers are properly looked after from being fed during shifts to scheduled breaks, and decent travel and living stipends for our volunteer managers. For us this is so basic, we don’t even think it’s worth talking about.
-
We want to be held accountable, and so we track everything we possibly can and release it publicly. You can check out our Sustainability report from our 2025 event here.
-
A big part of our coffee festival is to create a space for people to learn more about one of the biggest commodities in the world – coffee. If you come to the festival and learn just one small thing about how you can buy better sourced and produced coffee then we will be so happy. If you learn more than one thing – you get a gold star.
-
Nordic Coffee Fest Sustainability Awards
Sustainability isn’t just about calling out the bad – it’s about celebrating the ones laying the foundation. That’s why, starting in 2025, we’re recognizing the exhibitors and partners who go above and beyond to minimize their impact. This is NCF Sustainability Awards.
At the festival, exhibitors who stand out for their sustainable efforts – whether in travel, production, or innovation – will earn an exclusive badge to showcase at their booth. A visible mark of commitment. These badges make it clear who’s setting the standard.
After the event, we’ll take it further. We’ll analyze key sustainability data and award official diplomas to the exhibitors who achieved the lowest energy use and waste per square meter.
Real results, real recognition.We can’t wait to see how creative and committed our exhibitors will be in shaping the most sustainable coffee festival in the world. Punkt.
Did you know that Ordna Event Agency (thats us) work a four day work week. We trialed this in 2023 and so far we’re loving how it helps us maintain a better work life balance, be more creative and have more fun as a team.
Our full sustainability platform for 2026
Our Sustainability report by category from 2026
Nordic Coffee Fest is produced by Ordna Event Agency, the people behind The Barista League and High Density.