Goals, Actions, and Key Performance Indicators for 2024/2025
As a family-owned company with 160 years of experience, we report on selected environmental, social, and corporate goals, initiatives, and metrics across our business operations. We are guided by a deep appreciation for people and nature. Our values and actions stem from this conviction.
With our sustainability report, we aim to provide you with a transparent insight into our sustainability strategy. You’ll learn more about our key areas of focus, the goals derived from them, and the measures we’re taking to drive sustainable change.
To organize our sustainability topics, we have prioritized the issues relevant to our business activities based on a documented analysis within four key areas of focus:
Value Chain
Environment and Climate
Employees
Governance
These areas of focus provide the framework for the goals, measures, and key performance indicators described in our Sustainability Report.
What We're Already Making a Difference With
Selected Measures and Key Performance Indicators
Strategy becomes relevant to us when it leads to concrete changes. That is why we measure our progress and make key developments transparent.
Responsibility Throughout Our Value Chain
Our products begin long before coffee is roasted, tea is packaged, or cocoa is prepared.
Our approach encompasses the stages described in the sustainability report—from raw material cultivation and procurement through production and packaging to logistics and preparation.
Our goal: long-term partnerships, more transparent supply chains, and increasingly sustainable products and solutions
By 2030, we aim to source only 100% more sustainable coffee .
At least 30% of our coffee is to be certified according to recognized standards such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, or EU Organic by 2030.
When selecting our suppliers, we take into account not only quality and cost-effectiveness but also social and environmental criteria.
Long-standing partnerships play a central role in this process. They build trust, increase transparency, and help us work together to develop solutions to environmental, social, and economic challenges.
A transparent supply chain helps us identify risks early on and act responsibly.
To this end, we are continuously refining our supplier management and increasingly relying on digital data and analytics.
Among other things, delivery and batch data can be combined with satellite data to identify, for example, potential risks related to deforestation.In addition, public registries, sanctions lists, and other sources of information can be continuously analyzed.
Packaging must reliably protect the product. At the same time, we are working on specific measures to reduce material use and improve recyclability, as assessed according to a defined method.
That is why we are working to reduce material usage and further improve the recyclability of our packaging.
Our goals:100% recyclable packaging by 2030and70% less aluminum by 2030.
For us, the value of a raw material does not automatically end with production.
By-products such as coffee husks are therefore put to further use and utilized, for example, for biogas, composting, animal feed, or fertilizer.
Reusable systems and pooling solutions also help conserve resources.
More Sustainable Products and Solutions
Sustainable development doesn't just happen at the source. We are also continuously improving our products and packaging.
For selected products, we have introduced packaging materials free of aluminum as well as single-material and single-composite solutions, whose recyclability has been assessed according to cyclos htp.
Since 2025, the J.J. Darboven end-consumer packaging for the German market, as defined in the sustainability report, has also included disposal instructions.
Protecting the climate, ecosystems, and natural resources is one of the key challenges of our time. At the same time, as producers of coffee, tea, and cocoa, we are directly dependent on climate conditions.
For the organizational and emissions scopes covered by the SBTi, the following absolute reduction targets apply through 2035, relative to the base year of 2023:
−63% for Scope 1 and Scope 2
−37.5% Scope 3 (non-FLAG)
−45.5% Scope 3 FLAG
The targets were assessed according to the SBTi criteria in effect at the time of validation. The exact scope of the targets is documented in the sustainability report and in the SBTi entry.
Tradition, responsibility and entrepreneurial foresight
For four generations, J.J. Darboven has stood for reliability, quality and partnership-based entrepreneurship. Our Hanseatic attitude reflects prudence, a down-to-earth attitude and the aspiration to act sustainably.
A small coffee business in Hamburg has grown into an internationally successful company with branches throughout Europe. Every step we take is characterized by prudent management with foresight and respectful treatment of the people we work with.
Sustainable corporate development thrives on the commitment of the people who shape it.
At J.J. Darboven, we want to create a work environment characterized by safety, respect, opportunities for growth, personal responsibility, and mutual trust.
Healthy and safe working conditions are a central part of our responsibility as an employer.
People with diverse experiences and life paths enrich our company.
In 2025, people from 31 nations were part of our workforce in Germany.
In addition, we work closely with the Elbe-Werkstätten and create opportunities for people with special needs to participate in the workforce.
Social responsibility is an integral part of who we are.
We support social, cultural, and community initiatives at our locations and also encourage our employees to volunteer.
In 2025, J.J. Darboven contributed a total of 191,243 euros in the form of monetary and in-kind donations .
Help for Families
Ronald McDonald House with an Oasis
When children become seriously ill, their families also need a safe haven. The Ronald McDonald House with Oase in Hamburg-Altona offers parents a temporary home—right on the grounds of the children’s hospital. J.J. Darboven supports the facility through a sponsorship of the rooftop terrace and regularly supplies the “Oase” with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. This ensures that a sense of closeness and security is maintained even during difficult times.
Preserving Historical Landmarks with Heart
Sponsorship of the Brooks Bridge
The Brooks Bridge is a historic landmark of Hamburg’s Speicherstadt—and a symbol of Hamburg as a trading city. Since 2003, Albert Darboven has sponsored this historic structure and financed the reconstruction of the four bronze sculptures, which represent cosmopolitanism, trade, and cultural ties. A commitment that preserves the past and shapes the future.
Governance
Our goal is to strengthen systematic risk management through various measures and make our company resilient.
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Social responsibility is an integral part of who we are.
We support social, cultural, and community initiatives at our locations and also encourage our employees to volunteer.
In 2025, J.J. Darboven contributed a total of 191,243 euros in the form of monetary and in-kind donations .