An interdisciplinary approach to appraisal of coffee supply chain sustainability

The project is in partnership with Bettys and Taylors Group (BTG). The aim of the project is to take an interdisciplinary approach to appraisal of the sustainability of their coffee supply chain, identifying key challenges and opportunities. The focus area of the project will likely be Uganda, however this will be confirmed over the coming weeks (August 2018), upon further meetings with BTG.
BTG have a goal to be net negative carbon in the near future. With this in mind, the supply chain and associated carbon will be modelled using secondary data. The model will be built based upon previous work in this area and compared with similar work throughout. The use of bioenergy within the supply chain will be identified alongside possible opportunities or barriers to further use. Alongside this, deforestation and reforestation will be identified and mapped using GIS.
In parallel to this model, a map of the stakeholders involved at each stage and the wider implications for society, environment, and economy will be created in order to build a picture of the challenges and opportunities within the supply chain. This will be done through a mixture of secondary and primary data collection.
The overarching aim will be to weave the two together creating a multi-criteria assessment tool that aids identification of critical areas for improved sustainability, whilst taking into account multiple stakeholder agendas. Initial consultation of the surrounding literature on similar tools suggests that there is a gap in terms of tools that are comprehensive enough to offer beneficial outputs, but concise enough to be used in industry, without being resource intensive

Impacts and benefits to the Non-Academic Users of the Centre include:
- Access to high quality, interdisciplinary R&D support to increase competitiveness
- Cutting edge research with high value for money;
- Access to knowledge and expertise;
- Recruitment from a pool of talented early-career students for future employment, and input into shaping the skill development of those students (engineers and scientists with training in the wider context of sustainability, economics, policy and commercial awareness).
- Technology transfer research;
- Access to a breadth or research facilities and expertise and interdisciplinary teams;
- Consultancy,
- Networking and participating in focussed forums with other technolgogy users and policy makers - sharing experiences;
- Training or secondments of their staff for enhanced knowledge transfer;
- Partnerships in innovation in the sector;
- Access to assessments of technolgoies and innovation with the best chance of a positive impact to society;

Impacts and benefits to Academic users in the fields of [1] Feedstocks, pre-processing and safety; [2] Conversion; [3] Utilisation, emissions and impact; [4] Sustainability and Whole systems, include:
- Access to and collaboration in world-leading, transformative research, which advances knowledge concerning innovative bioenergy technologies, sustainability and social acceptability, and policy mechanisms for acheiving these;
- Development of new collaborations and leaverage of further funding to support their activities;
- Access to knowledge and expertise and networking and dissemination events;
- Research exchange opportunities for mutual benefit and cross-fertilisation of ideas and innovation