Building Sustainable Cities
Singapore’s first B Corp brews coffee with sweet impact
Childhood lessons spurred social entrepreneur Pamela Chng to start a business that benefits society
For a social enterprise to be profitable and sustainable, Bettr Group founder Pamela Chng says it is important to develop multiple revenue streams from the start.
PHOTO: BETTR GROUP
Rachel Chia, Content STudio
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Many a coffee lover has dreamed of opening a cafe, and Ms Pamela Chng, 47, is no exception.
Burned out after eight years building a web consultancy amid the dot.com boom, she did as many exhausted executives are inclined to do: sold her stake, quit her job, and spent a year travelling the world.
Over artisanal cuppas in Italy, Australia and the US, the sociology graduate from the University of Melbourne mulled over the best way to start the coffee business she had always envisioned: a social enterprise for profit and purpose.
“It's challenging working with human beings, but it’s also very fulfilling, because when you see the growth in each person, it gives you hope,” she says. “I need to see problems solved and needs met. Maybe that's the sociologist in me.”
Ms Chng, who is single, traces her commitment to social responsibility to a childhood spent with her grandmother. In the 1950s, the family’s matriarch started a dressmaking business that housed, fed and taught dozens of young women to sew, providing them precious work as seamstresses in post-war Singapore.
“She was way ahead of her time,” Ms Chng says. “She would always try and do right by her people. She shaped a lot of my values.”
About 40 years later, the granddaughter saw that Singapore’s soaring consumption of coffee could benefit the many lives connected to its production. According to global data firm Statista, the Republic downed 5.7 million kilograms of java between 2021 and 2022. Ms Chng herself drinks two cups a day – an oat milk double cappuccino each morning, and a black coffee every afternoon.
So in 2011, back from her year abroad, she got to work – armed with a plan to make coffee, make money, and make an impact.
Not just coffee talk
Today, the business Ms Chng envisioned is in full swing. Every speciality cuppa from Panama, Ethiopia or Laos that customers order at Bettr Group’s three coffee bars helps make the industry more sustainable.
How? Through beans that the brand only buys from two sources.
Bettr sources sustainably grown coffee from all around the world, including countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Indonesia, India and Laos.
PHOTO: BETTR GROUP
The first is from the farmers themselves, with Bettr committing to long-term agreements to buy the crop at a fair price. Ms Chng defines this as a price at which the farmers can make a living, and have enough left over to invest in sustainable practices, such as using organic fertiliser or treating wastewater from coffee mills.
“Eighty per cent of coffee producers are still living under the poverty line. Without money, they cannot treat the environment better,” she says.
“Singapore, as a consuming country, can do its part on this end of the value chain. If we can’t make growing coffee a sustainable living, then parents are not going to pass the farms down to their children, and at the rate we're going, in 50 years we may not have coffee.”
The second group Bettr sources from is purpose-aligned traders, whose beans either carry a global sustainability certification like Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, or run programmes to give back – such as preserving rainforests around coffee farms, educating farmers’ children, or investing in women farmers.
Once suitably sustainable java has been procured, the beans are then roasted at the company’s headquarters in Tai Seng for wholesale, online sales or use at its outlets.
As part of its efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030, used coffee grounds are not tossed, but turned into furniture material through an initiative led by local coffee recycling company A1 Environment.
For these and other initiatives, Bettr Group became South-east Asia’s first Certified B Corporation (B Corp) in 2015, turning profitable in the same year.
B Corp is a globally recognised certification for companies that meet high standards of social and environmental impact, developed by US-based non-profit organisation B Lab. Companies must submit data every three years to be recertified.
“People always ask why we became a B Corp. Is it to make more money? No,” laughs Ms Chng. “It provides a robust framework for impact accountability and constant improvement.”
Better all around
Both small and large businesses appreciate the benefits of embracing sustainability, says UOB’s Business Outlook Study 2023.
Conducted between December and January, UOB surveyed 823 companies in Singapore to gather sentiments on adopting sustainability practices. Here are some key findings.
- 33%
of businesses give back to the community as one of their sustainable practices
- Over 1 in 3
businesses say sustainability practices help them attract and retain talent, and nearly 4 in 10 have incorporated employee welfare in their practices
- > 70%
of businesses in the consumer goods and hospitality sectors have made net zero commitments
Brewing success
Bettr’s impact doesn’t stop at the environment. Beyond its outlets and roastery, the Bettr Academy at its headquarters runs internationally-certified coffee and beverage programmes for the public and industry.
It also runs two holistic training programmes for beneficiaries from 119 social service organisations, which are two and four months long.
Bettr Academy also partners with SkillsFuture Singapore to help mid-career professionals transition into new sectors or roles through the SkillsFuture Career Transition Programme.
PHOTO: BETTR GROUP
These beneficiaries include youth at risk, women from low-income backgrounds, and people with disabilities and mental health issues. Such individuals tend to gravitate toward jobs in the food and beverage sector, says Ms Chng.
Naturally, Bettr hires academy graduates to staff its outlets, and helps push them into higher-paying jobs in the wider industry.
But there are challenges. Staff sometimes may not show up, arrive late, or face difficulties managing conflicts at work.
“Productivity can be affected,” the founder admits. “But these people have real challenges, and if you don’t take the time to work with them and harness their potential, you have a workforce forever lost to you.”
Making people better
- 228
beneficiaries have attended Bettr Group’s holistic training programme to date
- 79%
of programme graduates land jobs within six months
- 26%
of its graduates are employed at Bettr Group, while the rest are placed in roles at over 40 employment partners
As part of its holistic training, staff undergo an emotional resilience programme to develop their confidence, resilience and emotional management skills.
As a result, the company’s workforce is loyal and committed, Ms Chng says. “They know we have their best interests at heart, and they invest themselves back.
“A big bugbear for me is how the industry treats workers as disposable. Turnover is very costly, and in the long term, businesses with high churn are probably spending more (than us) on learning and development.”
How much has it cost Ms Chng to fulfil her cafe dream? “I took an 80 per cent pay cut,” she laughs. “Is it nice to have more money? Sure. But then you have to ask yourself, when is enough, enough?
“Business has the power to shape people. You can create workplaces that are environments of success for everybody. What will you do with that power? If you have been blessed with more than others, then do something with it.”
Building Sustainable Cities is a series sharing insights on how individuals and businesses can take action to forge a cleaner, greener tomorrow.
This is the third of a five-part series in partnership with
