Bar Company: The sustainable one caterer

Into the depths

Total CO₂ emissions compensation

There are several ways to offset CO₂ emissions. Most companies opt to plant trees. We, however, chose a different project: the Hongera Cookstoves Local Community project. This project offsets even more CO₂ emissions per euro invested. The project is less well known to the general public, but it does have a significant impact.

Hongera Cookstoves Local Community Project

The project focuses on the production and distribution of energy-efficient cookstoves to local communities in Kenya. This improves their health, reduces CO₂ emissions and curbs deforestation.

The project is being developed under the Gold Standard, which guarantees that genuine, measurable results will be achieved. Furthermore, this standard ensures that the project will have a lasting impact on the local population and the natural environment.

Growing oyster mushrooms on our coffee grounds

In 2023, we threw away around 10,000 kg of coffee grounds. We were well aware that coffee grounds can be reused, but none of the companies offering this service showed any interest when we approached them.

Until, six months ago, we discovered Versfabriek. And you won’t believe it, but they’re based right here in our lovely Nijmegen. Versfabriek is an urban farm that collects local organic waste and uses it to grow food. These produce are then purchased by local restaurants. Now, all our leftover coffee grounds go to Versfabriek every week. And these oyster mushrooms have been grown on our coffee. How cool is that!

Empty bottles are reused in a Rage Room

Jeff (on the left) is a former bartender at BC and has recently set up his own business: Rage Room Smash it. In his rage rooms, you can demolish an entire room using a sledgehammer, a bat or a crowbar.

His concept has been a huge success, which means he’s constantly in need of items that can be broken.

Every week, our cocktail catering events leave us with about five containers full of empty bottles. These bottles used to be collected by a waste management company, but we’re now giving them a new lease of life in Jeff’s Rage Room before they go into the glass recycling bin. Brilliant, isn’t it?

Using less energy and choosing green energy

All our passenger cars are electric. Unfortunately, this is not yet possible for our buses. By limiting the speed of our buses and lorries, they do consume less fuel. We also use route-planning software to identify the most efficient and combined routes.

We have analysed the energy consumption of our offices and warehouses and have implemented various energy-saving measures. We have switched entirely to LED lighting, reduced the amount of time the lights are on, installed smart sensors, and use energy-efficient air-conditioning units for heating and ventilation. As a result, we are using 40% less energy!

Bye-bye plastic, we’ve given it up

Most of our cocktails are drunk through a straw. And we serve almost all our smoothies and juices in disposable cups. As you can imagine, this adds up to a huge amount of plastic every year. Or rather, it used to. Although it is, unfortunately, still the norm in our industry, we’ve had enough of single-use plastic and have therefore stopped using it altogether.

The disposable items we currently use are made from renewable plant-based raw materials such as maize starch or sugar cane. The straws and cups look almost identical to their plastic counterparts, but are now biodegradable.

“We want the world on a sustainable way still more fun make. Do you ”Come along?"