On September 4, 2024, we conducted an online seminar with Hokkaido Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Ltd. on the theme of upcycling and the circular economy. We collaborated with Hokkaido Coca-Cola Bottling during the promotion of the BathCafe product, where as a return gift, we conducted crowdfunding offering drip bags of coffee from Malawi (and also from Congo on the day of the event). You can read the story from that time here.

– Circular Economy Support for Malawi
This encounter prompted Seibo to further contemplate how major corporations involved in coffee and beverage water businesses are considering environmental issues, future resource sustainability, and business sustainability. Providing meals to children in Malawi could lead to improved school education and the acquisition of new skills beyond agriculture, potentially leading to stable income for those children, which in turn could support the education and nutrition of the next generation. This cycle contributes to sustainable national development and the creation of a circular economy and economy. For more details, please refer to the latest report here.

– Malawi Coffee and Upcycling
Additionally, the coffee used in this initiative is meticulously harvested through direct communication with local farmlands in Malawi, ensuring fair trade prices are set, hand-picked for quality beans, and imported appropriately to Japan, creating a sustainable cycle. By connecting this coffee through Seibo’s intervention to school meals, it contributes to the development of the existing coffee business, benefiting future children, and becomes an initiative that can be termed circular (circular).

The products used in this initiative by Hokkaido Coca-Cola Bottling contribute to upcycling by transforming coffee grounds into soap, allowing used materials to be reborn as soap for cleansing the body. For more details, please see here.

– Learning Effects at Koan Girls’ School
Creating a circular economy like this and fostering children’s growth emphasizes upcycling as an attractive feature of products, suggesting good collaboration for the future. We hope this content will connect with the learning at Koan Girls’ School, as well as with the long-term achievement of SDGs and CSR-conscious product procurement by banks and other companies, organizing the supply chain. Thank you very much to Hokkaido Coca-Cola Bottling for their cooperation in the classroom!

The school plans to sell coffee and BathCafe in the future. We hope this will provide an opportunity to learn about the background and societal significance of these products and to communicate that to others.