Grounds for thought: How cafes in Singapore create socially-conscious experiences

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, yet its production is notoriously resource-heavy. The UN estimates that 140 litres of water are required to produce just one cup, making it a significant player in global environmental concerns. But as consumers, we have the power to shift the tide. By making conscious choices – opting for fair trade or ethically sourced beans, supporting cafes with sustainable practices – we’re helping to ensure that our daily dose of caffeine doesn’t come at the expense of the planet. Here are just a few of the cafes in Singapore that champion local roasters, minimise waste, and just serves up better brew.

Blue Bottle Coffee recently opened their first Singapore store at Raffles City. Photo: Blue Bottle Coffee

Cult-favourite Blue Bottle Coffee, which recently opened its first Singapore outpost in Japanese clothing store Lumine at Raffles City, is known for its meticulous approach to coffee sourcing, roasting and brewing. The brand not only consistently pays above-market prices for high-quality beans, but also gives back by supporting community projects at origin, from agronomy programs to farmworker support initiatives. Since 2020, the California-founded company has partnered with Enveritas, a nonprofit that catalogs and evaluates farm practices against environmental, social, and economic sustainability standards. This data helps Blue Bottle and the farmers continuously make improvements to ensure more sustainable practices in the long run. In 2021, the brand set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2024, focusing – among other areas – on green coffee, where it aims to lower the risk of deforestation in its sourcing.

Cloud Cafe uses single-origin beans for better traceability and also recycles their coffee grounds. Photo: Cloud Cafe

Smaller independent cafes like Duxton Hill’s Cloud Cafe are also finding their own ways to make an impact. Its signature drinks, such as the Cloud Black and Cloud White, are brewed using single-origin beans from Santa Inês in Carmo de Minas, Brazil; the Yellow Bourbon variety is chosen for its smooth body, nutty sweetness, and mellow acidity. Single-origin coffee – coffee sourced from a specific location – promotes sustainability by ensuring traceability, fostering direct relationships with farmers, and encouraging a focus on quality over quantity.

Rather than toss out their spent coffee grounds, the cloud-themed cafe reimagines them as ingredients, incorporating them into seasonal bakes like the Chocolate Coffee Loaf and Chocolate Crumble Kek to give them a rich bitter depth. The coffee grounds are also placed around the store as a natural deodoriser, helping to neutralise odours without the use of artificial fragrances. By night, the space transforms into the cocktail concept Last Call, where the coffee grounds are infused in Bean And Bare It, a mellow Scotch-based tipple, imbuing it with an aromatic intensity. It’s a fitting toast to the cafe’s ethos of minimising waste, where even the by-products of coffee making are repurposed into something delicious.

Bettr Coffee partners coffee farmers across Asia and Latin America who share their commitment to sustainability. Photo: Bettr Coffee

Spent coffee grounds are also given a cocktailian revival at Bettr Coffee. To make the Bettr Old Fashioned, the leftovers from the espresso bar are steeped overnight with blended malt whisky, sourced from ecoSPIRITS, a low-waste, closed-loop packaging system that significantly reduces carbon emissions. The result? A layered, sustainable twist on a classic. The specialty coffee brand, Southeast Asia’s first certified B Corporation, is known for its impact-driven mission – doing good while serving great coffee. One of its core arms, Bettr Academy – the largest Specialty Coffee Association Premier Training Campus in the region – has trained more than 15,000 individuals in professional barista skills, including at-risk youth, prison inmates, and individuals from marginalised backgrounds. Bettr Coffee also champions responsible sourcing through long-standing partnerships with coffee farmers across Asia and Latin America, working with producers who share its commitment to ethical labour, environmental stewardship, and direct trade.

Local start-up Prefer creates coffee using fermented bread, a more sustainable resource than coffee beans. Photo: Prefer

Besides its award-winning Eureka blend, Bettr also serves coffee-free alternative Prefer, made from upcycled bread, soy, and barley. A climate-conscious Singaporean startup, Prefer Coffee is proposing something bold: coffee made without coffee beans. The coffee industry faces an existential crisis, says the brand, with climate change projected to wipe out up to 50% of coffee-growing land in the coming decades. As a more sustainable alternative, Prefer is said to emit five times less carbon dioxide than conventional coffee production – great news for your carbon footprint. Curious what bean-free coffee tastes like? CEO Jake Berber describes it as “nutty and chocolatey, similar to a Brazilian Arabica, with low acidity and a medium body.” Aside from Bettr Coffee, you can find Prefer at Guzman Y Gomez, Dough and The Providore, and even in espresso martinis at Fura and White Shades.

While a larger organisation, Bacha Coffee is committed to reducing waste in their processes. Photo: Bacha Coffee

While Prefer Coffee has its sights on the future, luxury brand Bacha Coffee draws from its heritage-rich past. Revived in Marrakech over a century after its founding in 1910, it’s deeply rooted in tradition, offering 100% Arabica coffees meticulously sourced from some of the world’s premier coffee-growing regions. Each harvest is sourced directly from farms and cooperatives, supporting the consistent application of optimum cultivation techniques and reducing its carbon footprint by eliminating intermediaries. This uncompromising commitment to quality aligns with the company’s sustainability ethos – beans that don’t meet their rigorous quality standards are rejected, thereby eliminating unnecessary roasting and reducing waste. “We may run out of stock, and that’s okay, because I want our loyal customers to come to our location and to experience the highest-quality coffee every single time,” says Taha Bouqdib, President & CEO of V3 Gourmet.

Additionally, Bacha Coffee also supports initiatives that empower communities. One such example is the Flores del Café Superior Coffee from Nicaragua. Produced on a plantation that exclusively employs women, this initiative aims to provide families with steady income sources and contribute to a better quality of life in the region.

For more information on Singapore Airlines flights to Singapore, visit singaporeair.com.

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