The Corp launched a social media campaign called Kill the Cup to reduce the waste created by disposable cups on Tuesday, Oct. 16.
Kill the Cup is a project developed by Social Ventures for Sustainability, an organization funded to decrease wasteful consumption by providing consumers with rewards for using reusable mugs when they order beverages. The project started as a pilot campaign at UC San Diego, where Mike Taylor (COL ’05) and Drew Beal, Social Venture co-founders, received graduate degrees in business.
“We developed a platform where users upload photos and share their responsible behavior on the Internet,” Taylor said, “After designing that framework, we were looking for other places to deliver this campaign in a box to other universities and we thought Georgetown would be a great next candidate.”
Social Ventures created the project after Beal realized how many cups his co-workers were wasting. “No matter how I pleaded with them, they would never take the step to bring their own cup,” Beal said, “We found that Starbucks offers 10 cents off when you bring your own cup. We thought that that wasn’t enough, so we decided to make it into a game.”
Participants can upload photos of themselves with reusable cups to killthecup.com in an attempt to win various prizes. There will be four weekly prizes of $25 Corp Gift Cards, three creativity prizes of t-shirts, and one grand prize including a $50 Corp Gift Card, a tumbler, a t-shirt, and a tote bag. A $550 grant from the Corp Philanthropy with the hopes of changing consumer behavior Committee is funding the campaign.
The Corp already offers 25 cents off for students who bring their own mugs to its coffee shops, but they are hoping the prizes will further motivate students to be more eco-conscious. “Because the campaign is so highly incentivized … hopefully that will make people more interested in using them,” Whitney Pratt (COL ’15), vice chair of the Corp Green Team, said. “Hopefully [it will] serve as a reminder so that when people leave their houses, they will bring their tumblers.”
Another part of the campaign is that students can buy tumblers at The Corp, which will save them 30 cents with every purchase. “[We are] offering tumblers in our stores and there will be a 30 cent discount … to get people more engaged in our particular campaign,” said Caroline Williams (MSB ’14), business development chair for The Corp.
After its implementation at UC San Diego, Taylor and Beal found the campaign successful in reducing paper cup waste. “The rate at which people bought coffee in reusable cups at UC San Diego rose from 11 or 12 percent to around 20 at the end of the campaign,” Taylor said, “We estimate that they saved around 1300 cups from entering the environment, which is 80 pounds of landfill.”
Social Ventures will offer data analysis and keep track of the percent of reused cups and total purchases at Corp coffee shops.
In addition to reducing waste, The Corp anticipates the campaign will have other benefits. “We’re really hoping that members of the Georgetown community will become aware of how wasteful coffee cups are,” Pratt said.
The Corp expects to continue its collaboration with Social Ventures beyond the four-week campaign. “We’re hoping to run it every year and to get people excited about it and thinking about sustainability,” Pratt said.
