In a stand against waste, this week it was announced that The Coffee Club and Starbucks Australia, two leading coffee chains, will offer a 50-cent discount incentive on hot beverage purchases when customers bring their own re-usable cups into store.
The Coffee Club’s franchisee commitment will be offered in all The Coffee Club stores across Australia effective immediately, and has the potential to save Australian up to $130 a yearaccording to The Coffee Club press statement.
In the wake of consumer demand for businesses to reduce waste, The Coffee Club has offered “Karma Cup” refills for many years and now wants to extend the environmentally friendly option for customers to also bring in their own reusable cup. The initiative hopes to make a difference to the estimated one million disposable coffee cups dumped in Australian landfill every year.
“The move to reusable coffee cups is a trend we’ve seen with our locals and regulars for a long time – it’s nice to be able to give back and reward them at the same time,” says Peter Collier, The Coffee Club Stockland Caloundra.
“Obviously disposable coffee cups are a huge cost not only to the environment but to our business as well, this is a great opportunity to trial what could be a more sustainable way of running our business.”
Head of Marketing at The Coffee Club, Matthew Emmerson says this initiative ensures a proactive approach in matters that are important to the communities their franchisees operate in.
“We are pleased to announce that following requests from many stores and customers, and a successful trial run by various stores, our incentive to be environmentally friendly is now consistent across Australia, as well as one of the first national cafés to offer such a great initiative,” Matthew says.
“We’ll be working closely with our franchisees over the coming months to monitor the positive impact the initiative has on their business and for now we are extremely proud to be taking this proactive step.”
The 50-cent discount on coffee purchases when a reusable coffee cup is presented is now available in all stores across Australia.
The move comes after Starbucks United Kingdom has announced it will trial a controversial “latte levy”, charging an additional five-pence or 10 cents to use disposable coffee cups from 26 July on all UK store.
The announcement follows a three-month trial in London, which found that the charge led to a 126 per cent increase in the use of reusable cups.
In other waste-related news, on 19 July Cibo Espresso launched a partnership with Simply Cups to manage a long term and sustainable coffee cup recycling program.
Media and public were invited to Rundle Mall in Adelaide to fill plastic cubes with takeaway coffee cups, which will be the first lot of cups from South Australia to be recycled.
Cibo Espresso says it is responding and reflecting the sentiments and expectations of customers, working with key stakeholders and influencers to lead the charge in making real change.