#consumer-responsibility

#consumer-responsibility

The baseline use of plant-based milk prior to instituting oat milk as the default was 16.6%. That jumped to 51.9% when baristas informed guests oat milk was the default option.

In April 2025, New York City got serious about composting, as the Department of Sanitation implemented its first-ever mandatory curbside composting program. The program aimed to divert food and yard waste generated in residential buildings from landfills, as organic materials make up a third of the City's waste stream.

First Watch sources coffee beans through Project Sunrise, fueled by a devoted collective called Mujeres en Café - Women in Coffee. Members are female coffee farmers whose roles stretch far beyond the fields and into the communities at large, serving as teachers, mothers, entrepreneurs, and pioneering leaders on multiple fronts.

"Ironically, many if not most of these 'sustainability' projects remain disassociated from companies' core procurement strategies, meaning the coffee produced from these projects is not necessarily bought by the companies involved, or only in minimal quantities," the paper states. "And for the coffee that is purchased, prices do not factor into the project design, despite the fact that price is the single variable impacting farmer income that is in the direct control of companies."