In this post I’m going to quickly outline a game plan to incentivize all the lonely Starbucks lovers to finally start bringing their own reusable cups! You will be convinced to start doing so by the information below, and together we can finally do away with those awful disposable cups that have nowhere to go other than the landfill. (No they are not recyclable or compostable, because of the plastic lining). Then we can all live happily ever after…

It has been a while since I wrote about Starbucks, so I’ll refer you to the following posts for more information on the company’s social and environmental impact:

All the way back in 2017, I asked readers to rate Starbucks for social and environmental impact (on a scale of 0-5 Green Stars). I discussed some of the pros and cons of Starbucks in terms of ethics. The company has always been a mix of positives and negatives, with waste generation being a negative on the environmental side.

The next post showed the poll results in which you scored Starbucks 2.3 out of 5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact – in other words, about average.

Then, in 2019, I devised a spreadsheet for determining an ethical score for a business, taking the example of a café. The idea here was that it can be challenging to come up with a score for a complex business like Starbucks but it becomes more doable when you break it down into smaller parts. So the table for scoring Starbucks was as follows:

The total score from the table above (12/25) translates to 2.4 Green Stars, which is very close to the average score of 2.3 from the user poll. So it seems that Starbucks is still about average, ethically speaking, by this method of calculation.

Free coffee beans if you bring your own mug!

In defense of Starbucks, the company has tried several programs to deal with the disposable cup waste problem, including a competition to design a more sustainable disposable cup and various incentives for customers to bring their own mugs. Having visited Starbucks (in the US) recently, I discovered two things:

1. You can now use your personal cup even when you order on the app – hit the customize button and scroll down to the end for cup options, and select Personal Cup. When you arrive at Starbucks, hand over your personal cup (without the lid) to the barista.
2. You will receive a discount of 10 cents but, much more importantly, you will now also receive 25 bonus stars.

It’s this last point that I want to focus on. The 25 bonus stars per order is way more valuable than the 10 cents discount. You will accumulate 300 stars after only 12 uses of your own mug, and that’s enough for a free 1 lb. bag of coffee, which normally costs $14-15. So the 25 bonus stars from each personal cup use is actually worth as much as $1.25 ($15 / 12).

I know that this seems like a weird post to write on this blog, but I get really frustrated with the culture of throwaway coffee cups. How are we ever going to fix problems like climate change, deforestation, and plastic pollution if we can’t even be bothered to bring our own coffee cup when we go for coffee?

You’ll hardly find a better financial incentive to bring your own personal cup. By making this small change you can see three benefits:

• Personal benefit: free 1 lb. of coffee for every 12 uses of your personal cup (value of $1.25 per use).
• Environmental benefit: reduce the disposable cup pandemic and take a step in changing our cultural image from throwaway to responsible.
• Bonus social / environmental benefit: if you select organic beans for your free bag, you’ll encourage Starbucks to source more organic coffee.

*The Yukon blend beans are organic. They are actually some of the best beans that Starbucks offers. The reserve coffee beans also bring various social and environmental benefits but cost 400 stars instead of 300.

Here’s a pictorial guide to this foolproof plan:

Bringing your own coffee cup is a very doable action and this is the best incentive you’re ever likely to get to start this new habit.

If you want to do one more thing, there’s an effective way to spread awareness (and therefore pressure Starbucks) on where improvement is needed – write a review of your local Starbucks that includes a Green Stars rating. I’ve provided an example review in this post, which you can modify to fit your opinion.

Like any other company, Starbucks will change in response to public demand.

Right now, though, it looks like the public is not demanding very much. This is obviously a major problem – particularly in cultures such as the US that often sets trends that others follow. We have a culture of TV and film that associates disposable coffee cups with productive and successful people. We have a situation in cafés where most customers (faced with three bins) genuinely don’t know what to do with their disposable cups after use.

Although this has been a fairly stagnant issue, I do believe that habits like this can be changed with the right mindset or incentive. Now that I’ve provided a formula to get free coffee beans by just reusing your mug, you have a pretty good incentive to make that change.   

Just ask yourself: Are we going to keep this world forever, or let it go down in flames?