Brewing up social goodness in Christchurch’s redzone

Founded in Christchurch more than 30 years ago, Hummingbird Coffee played a high profile role in the Re:START container mall and donated $100,000 to the Court Theatre to help maintain the cultural life of the city. Since 2005, Hummingbird has paid more than $10 million in fair trade organic premiums to tens of thousands of growers and their families in 10 countries.

Now known as Hummingbird’s Green Bean Fund, this charitable initiative continues to donate $1 from every $100 of green coffee beans it buys to local communities within New Zealand. A partnership with The Green Lab first began in 2022 where Hummingbird helped to establish the Mairehau Neighbourhood Garden with a $10,000 donation.

Scaling up, the Sensory Nature Play joint project has brought a deserted residential playground on Brooker Ave back to life as a nature haven designed to encourage a deeper connection with the environment and with sustainability, accessibility and biodiversity in mind.

Beautifully nestled within restoration plantings thanks to the efforts of Avon-Ōtākaro Forest Park Trust, the new Sensory Nature Play Park also aims to serve as an educational hub for all ages and abilities. Its design encourages children to discover nature by feeling different textures of leaves and wood, to smell a variety of native plant aromas, and listen for the variety in natural sounds like tapping on wood and rustling leaves.

Hummingbird was committed to ensuring the project had minimal impact on the environment, with the park embodying sustainable practices throughout. Recycled hessian coffee bean sacks were supplied from Hummingbird as a protective ground layer around new native plantings, and a communal coffee ground compost bin was built for nearby Hummingbird cafes to reduce waste and support plant growth in the park. Fencing and signage posts are made from recycled soft plastics, which acknowledges how Hummingbird’s coffee packaging is accepted under the soft plastic recycling scheme.

Convergence supported the relationship between the two businesses throughout the process, and achieved excellent paid and earned media results once the park was officially opened.

We organised advertorial opportunities for both Hummingbird and the charitable initiative The Green Lab, helping them to gain profile of the fantastic work they have each done for the local community. These included a comprehensive and extremely well-engaged video from Chris Lynch that was published on his Facebook page (alongside a Hummingbird Coffee product giveaway), advertorials in Metropol and Life & Leisure magazines, and national features in Family Times and Neat Places.

We were pleased to secure earned coverage in the online and print copies of The Press and The Star newspapers, Christchurch City Council’s blog post and social media, and a full-page editorial piece in the widely circulated Kiwi Gardener magazine.