Is coffee affecting your CSR?

Coffee-by-numbers
If you have a penchant for coffee-to-go, you may have recently been made aware of the environmental impact of your daily brew. Whether you enjoy a skinny-double-shot-mochaccino with extra foam or just a classic cup of tea, our favourite on-the-go beverages are all poured into the same cup. Takeaway cups, although seemingly made of paper (and surely recyclable, right?), have a tightly bonded polyethylene liner requiring a specialist recycling process to separate that is only carried out at select UK plants. As a result of this construction, only one in 400 cups are actually recycled, that’s less than 1% (oh).

To intensify these facts, we use 7 million disposable cups in the UK every day and half a million of these end up as litter on our streets. Annually, this amounts to 2.5 billion disposable cups being thrown away by us Brits alone- this is enough to stretch around planet earth roughly five and a half times – ouch.

It pays to re-use
Amidst calls from MPs to introduce a 25p charge on single-use coffee cups, Starbucks are trialling a 5p charge in 35 of their London branches in a bid to encourage customers to BYOC. They have long offered a 25p drink discount for using reusable cups but as with plastic bags, consumers may be more responsive to a charge than to an incentive. The 5p carrier bag charge reduced bag usage by more than 83% in its first year after all.

Also motivated by recent statistics, in February Pret A Manger doubled its discount to 50p on all hot drinks bought by customers with reusable cups. With discounts to be unlocked across the board, it’s clear reusable mugs can help to save few pennies as well as the environment.

So what can you do to help?
It can never hurt to polish your company’s CSR policy. Make it as easy as possible for your staff to change their coffee habits by equipping them with reusable mugs of their own. Get your employees on board with doing their bit for the environment and put your company’s stamp on eye-catching and stylish reusable and travel-friendly drinkware. Not only will they be seen promoting your company’s eco values, but you will help them to individually save money and waste. Put the kettle on and contact one of our account managers to discover our range of brandable, reusable cups and travel mugs for all thirsts.