industry:

Food & Beverages, Packaging

GEOGRAPHIC FOOTPRINT:

Cheshire, UK

PRODUCT LINE:

Roasted Coffee, reusable packaging, compostable pods

Summary

Challenges

Kickback wanted to understand the impacts of their efforts to reduce single use packaging and electric transportation. They needed a solution that:

Quantifies their current efforts to reduce environmental impact

Identifies new opportunities to further progress sustainable practices

Solutions

To meet these goals, Kickback partnered with CarbonBright to perform an LCA on their wholesale delivery. Kickback was able to:

Understand the environmental impact of their product from agricultural production to end-of-life disposal

Compare traditional disposable packaging to their retail product

Compare Royal Mail services to their electric delivery methods

Results

CarbonBright helped Kickback validate their claims with data-backed insights:

Identify the impact of each category in an LCA

Kickback packaging saved 82% CO2e compared to traditional packaging

Electric delivery methods saved 12% CO2e compared to the Royal Mail service

About Kickback Coffee Roasting Co.

Kickback Coffee is a specialty coffee roastery based in the UK focused on delivering great coffee with minimal environmental impact. By using reusable containers, electric vehicles, and local sourcing, the brand is redefining low-impact coffee distribution.

Their commitment to science-based sustainability and customer transparency has made them a rising leader in the eco-cleaning space.

Industry Challenge

Nearly 176 million 60 kg bags of coffee, one of the most popular beverages in the world, were consumed worldwide in a one year period in 2021 and 2022. Now imagine all the packaging & disposal waste, transportation associated with coffee consumption. Every bag or container of beans, whether you make it at home or buy it from a cafe, adds up.
Kickback Coffee aims to reduce the packaging waste from coffee without sacrificing quality or convenience

CarbonBright Solution

Kickback Coffee needed more than anecdotal evidence to validate the environmental value of its low-waste distribution model. CarbonBright’s AI-powered LCA platform offered a scalable, data-driven way to analyze and compare their sustainable packaging and delivery initiatives against traditional options.
How the platform delivered:

Automated Lifecycle Analysis: CarbonBright eliminated the need for time-consuming manual LCAs, allowing Kickback to generate cradle-to-grave assessments with speed and precision.

Scenario-Based Modeling: Kickback could simulate alternative logistics and packaging scenarios (e.g., electric delivery vs. traditional courier) to pinpoint the drivers of emissions reductions.

Reusable Packaging Benchmarking: The platform mapped environmental impact at each stage of the packaging lifecycle, from material sourcing to reusability cycles and end-of-life.

Data That Drives Messaging: Outputs were ISO-aligned and audit-ready, enabling Kickback to confidently integrate emissions claims into stakeholder and customer communications.

By using CarbonBright, Kickback Coffee didn’t just confirm the benefits of reuse and electrification they operationalized a faster, credible approach to carbon accounting that scaled with their supply chain complexity.

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