Innovation

The heart behind Scribbles Coffee Co. is providing a space for local residents and students of nearby Kent State University alike to engage with one another, forming relationships and a sense of community. One can sense this right away when entering the shop. The atmosphere can be described as warm and rustic, the space inviting you to both relax and reenergize. Some customers may come to Scribbles to work on coursework and focus, while others utilize the space to socialize and catch up with friends. Stopping in to Scribbles has become a ritual for its patrons and has created a unique community among people whose paths would not normally cross.

The current owner of Scribbles, Beth Budzar, became owner in 2013 and was instrumental in shaping the business to its current iteration. She identified a white space opportunity the store had to provide a community space and wanted more organizations within the city and university (Kent State University) to be involved with Scribbles Coffee Co. Upon becoming owner, Budzar welcomed organizations to host various events and activities within the coffee shop. This attracted a more diverse and broad customer base for the shop, enhancing and adding naunce to the Scribbles community. Overall, this notion of cultivating a sense of community is firmly in line with SDG Goal 11’s notion of creating sustainable community, specifically, the creation of safe, inclusive, and accessible spaces for all.

In addition to this social innovation within the community, Budzar altered the business supply chain by implementing a coffee roaster. The integration of this roaster allows the business to better control their product quality, while simultaneously shortening the supply chain. The byproduct of serving coffee is coffee grounds, which are most typically discarded. However, Scribbles Coffee Co. has found innovative uses for this typical waste product within the community. Through thinking intelligently about reducing waste, Scribbles Coffee Co. distributes coffee grounds to community members for use within their gardens as fertilizer, within their compost pile, within bath products, and as natural dye material for use in the Kent State University textiles department. Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production ties in perfectly with Scribbles practices mentioned above, especially Target 3, which focuses on the reduction of food waste and in creating sustainable supply chains.

Inspiration

Before becoming the owner of Scribbles Coffee Co., Beth worked with the company as one of the employees.Through working in the retail space on a day to day basis, she was able to learn first hand what innovations the customers wanted, which helped her see the new opportunities that could be undertaken. Beth worked alongside the previous owners and learned the trade of the coffee business. Beth stated, “I had ideas of what I wanted to change; to create more of an environment for people to get together.” The previous owners had passed up opportunities for more customer engagement, and Beth was willing to change up the pace once becoming owner. Over the past five years in which Beth has been an owner of Scribbles Coffee Co., she has curated a different customer experience within the shop. In her spare time, she enjoys researching the industry and performing experiment with coffee, aiming to keep on the cutting edge of what is innovative and workable for the business.

Employees of Scribbles Coffee Co. also serve as an inspiration for innovation. Given the culture of the business, Scribbles often attracts workers who have interests in sustainability. This helps to create a mutually beneficial relationship between the ownership team and the employees, whereby workers can make suggestions about little sustainable improvements here or there, knowing that they have a receptive ear and a real chance at making a tangible difference in the business.

Overall impact

It can be all too easy to think that the impact of sustainable innovation at a small business such as Scribbles Coffee Co. is exactly that. Small. However, when examined in a broader context, it is perhaps these incremental, localized shifts in the sustainable direction that make us globally more receptive to widespread change.

The impact of the supply chain changes Scribbles Coffee Co. has made through switching to roast their own beans and finding additional usefulness for coffee grounds are perhaps the easiest to understand. Through roasting their coffee beans, the business helps to eliminate an additional step within their supply chain. With 28% of US greenhouse gas emissions resulting from transportation alone (according to the EPA for 2016), the benefits of reducing the transportation required for the supply chain are self-evident. The company is also looking to add to their roasting operation, aiming to distribute locally on a commercial level. This action would only further amplify degree to which Scribbles Coffee Co. is advocating sustainable supply chain practices, not merely for their business, but for those in the surrounding community as well.

The community-building efforts Scribbles Coffee Co has undertaken are a bit more nebulous to measure. Increasing community engagement helps the business to overall have higher brand recognition within the city of Kent, Ohio. Working to hone their business model as one focused on creating a sense of community long-term ideally give rise to a more integrated and lively city, promoting social sustainability.

Business benefit

The innovations implemented by Scribbles Coffee Co. provide a number of benefits from a business point of view. The focus on cultivating a community around the shop has given rise to a growing and more broad customer base. By hosting community events and organizations from local Kent State University, the shop is able to expand their use cases. Individuals who may not typically frequent Scribbles might stop in for a community event, a club meeting, or to hear music at an open mic. This community focus also serves as a differentiator from the other independently-owned coffee shops in the area.

Roasting coffee beans in house provides Scribbles Coffee Co with three main benefits. From a costing perspective, owning an additional step in the supply chain of their product is a costing advantage for the business. It also gives them additional control over their final product, since the manner in which a coffee bean is roasted has a great impact on taste. Scribbles already uses single-origin, Fair Trade, organic beans in their process, so bringing that quality coffee bean to it’s best by controlling roasting makes sense. It also has served as a way for there to be greater family involvement in the business, with Budzar’s husband serving as the roastmaster, occasionally involving their children as well.

With respect to Scribbles Coffee Co’s innovative way of handling “waste” coffee grounds, the benefit is less purely for the business and more a benefit for the environment and community. More on that below.

Social and environmental benefit

As mentioned earlier, Scribbles Coffee Co. roasts their own beans, which provides a number of benefits for the environment. Owning a roaster allows the business to reduce the overall number of steps in their supply chain, which helps reduce the “true cost” of greenhouse gas emissions involved in the final product by reducing needed transportation. The company utilizes single-origin, organic, Fair Trade coffee beans, which is also supportive of fair work and more sustainable agricultural practices. This is in line with Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. Scribbles Coffee Co. has also worked to further reduce their environmental footprint through waste reduction. Rather than simply disposing of coffee grounds, they are diverted through a number of sources. Grounds are given away to local community members for use as compost in gardens, in the creation of natural bath products, and to the local university for natural fabric dyeing. Diverting product that would otherwise end up in the landfill serves as intelligent implementation of waste management strategy.

The efforts Scribbles Coffee Co has done on building community within the city of Kent serve primarily as a benefit to society. Promoting tightly knit communities is in line with principles of social sustainability. Through hosting different clubs and groups, the business helps to bring together dissimilar groups into a single space that may not otherwise meet. The environmentally sustainable practices the company has implemented also serve as an example of change on a level that even an individual can undertake, whether it is being conscious about limiting single-use items, or voting with your wallet, through buying local or purchasing products produced under ethical and fair labor.

Interview

Beth Budzar, Owner