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Starbucks betacup open innovation contest aims to reduce Paper Cup Consumption

Breakthrough:
By motivating people to use reusable cups, Starbucks hopes to reduce paper cup consumption by 100% by 2015.

Company:

The Story:
Starbucks betacup open innovation contest aims to reduce Paper Cup Consumption

In a recent open innovation contest to reduce paper cup consumption, Starbucks has awarded the winning $10,000 idea to "Karma Cup."

Five runners-up were awarded $2,000 each.

Currently Starbucks uses more than 58 billion coffee cups per year, in North America alone, per year. In an effort to use less consumables, they were happy to sponsor the betacup contest started by Toby Daniels, a social entrepreneur, along with Shaun Abrahamson and Marcel Botha of Colaboratoire Mutopo.

Although reusable cups work well, because they are less convenient than paper cups, consumers lacked the motivation to use them.

Starbucks ran the betacup contest on jovoto.com, where ideas were submitted from April 1 to June 1, 2010. Thousands of people participated, sharing their ideas and thoughts on reducing paper cup waste.

Jim Hanna, Starbucks Director of Environmental Impact stated that, "Consumers can play an important role by sharing creative ideas and spreading the word, as they’ve done with the betacup. It's this kind of passion and enthusiasm that will help the reusable cup movement gain real momentum."

In 2009 Starbucks was able to serve more than 26 million beverages in reusable cups, keeping nearly 1.2 million pounds of paper from ending up in landfills.

With the input of thousands of open innovation contest submissions, Starbucks hopes to serve 100 percent of its beverages in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.

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