We recently hosted a collaborative event with Protect Our Winters UK at ShAFF, and if I’m honest, I didn’t go into it with any fixed expectations.

What I came away with was something simple, but quietly powerful: give people good coffee, create the right space, and ask them to talk about complex problems… and something shifts.

At Common, our purpose has always been rooted in connection. Coffee, for us, is not just a product, it’s a platform. A way to bring people together, to slow things down, and to create space for conversations that might not otherwise happen. Our vision has always been about building those moments of shared understanding, however small they may seem at first.

This event felt like a real expression of that.

Sitting around the table, the conversation turned to climate, policy, responsibility, and what meaningful change actually looks like. There were strong views on what governments should or shouldn’t be doing. Then the question came my way.

I answered from the perspective I know best, that of a small business. I spoke about the reality of navigating climate related policies while trying to keep a business operational. The tension between doing the right thing and staying viable. The difficult decisions around whether to scale within the UK or move production elsewhere. The trade offs that don’t always make it into the wider conversation.

What struck me wasn’t disagreement, it was how new that perspective felt to others at the table.

We had all been circling the same problem, but from entirely different vantage points.

And yet, for 45 minutes, we listened. Properly listened.

It made me wonder how often we miss this. How often conversations around climate, and many other complex challenges, happen within familiar circles, or what I’ve started to think of as “bubbles.” We talk, we debate, we refine ideas, but often with people who share similar contexts, pressures, or assumptions.

What happens when those bubbles meet?

That’s where this idea began to form: The Meeting of Bubbles.

A simple concept, really. Bring together people from different worlds, policy, business, activism, community, and give them a space to talk openly. No agenda beyond curiosity. No expectation beyond listening.

Because if this experience showed me anything, it’s that somewhere between those differing perspectives, there is often a middle ground. And in that middle ground lies the potential for solutions that are both economically realistic and environmentally meaningful.

At Common, we believe the best ideas rise through honest, in person conversation. Not perfectly formed, not without friction, but shaped through real exchange.

If coffee can help create that space, even in a small way, then it feels like a good place to start.