Consumer

Starbucks redesigns its cold drink cups to reduce plastic waste [Video]
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European Economy and Markets

Starbucks redesigns its cold drink cups to reduce plastic waste [Video]

Booming sales of cold drinks at Starbucks has created a problem: growing amounts of plastic waste from the single-use cups that Frappuccinos, Refreshers, cold brews and other iced drinks are served in.The coffee giant said Thursday it plans to alleviate some of that waste with new disposable cups that contain up to 20% less plastic. The cups are set to be rolled out to stores in the U.S. and Canada starting this month.Amelia Landers, Starbucks’ vice president of product innovation, said the Seattle-based company spent the last four years developing the new containers. Engineers tested thousands of iterations to see how much plastic they could remove while still making the cup feel sturdy.”We feel like it’s industry-leading,” Landers said. “It’s the best expression of a cold plastic cup.”Starbucks says Frappuccinos and other cold drinks now account for 75% of its U.S. beverage sales, up from 37% in 2013. The company estimates the new cups will keep more than 13.5 million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year. Producing the tumblers also requires less water and creates fewer carbon emissions, a leading cause of climate change, it said.Starbucks made other changes as part of the redesign. The new cold cups feature raised dots near the bottom, so baristas including those with impaired vision can quickly feel with the swipe of a thumb which size cup they’re holding. And the 12-ounce cup that’s the “tall” size in Starbucks lingo is shorter and wider to accommodate the same-size lid as larger cups.Landers said the new cups are part of a sustained sustainability push at Starbucks. The company adopted strawless lids in 2019. Last year, it said it would accept customer-provided cups for drive-thru and mobile orders in the U.S. and Canada.The company plans to roll out a reusable cup program at thousands of stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by next year. Under the program, customers will pay a small deposit when they buy a hot or cold drink in a specially designed cup that can be used up to 30 times. They will get the deposit back when they return the cup to a store.Starbucks has also tested U.S. reusable cup programs in California, Arizona and Colorado.”Every market has their own challenges, their own requirements and customer behavior. Some are more prime for reusables, some are less prime for reusables,” Landers said. “There is no one silver bullet to a sustainable cup.”In the long term, Starbucks has said it wants all of its packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030. The reduced-plastic cup making its debut is a small step toward that goal: even though the cup is recyclable, it still was designed for one-time use, Landers said.The company will continue to explore ways to make single-use cups more sustainable, she said.”I think we will never take our foot off the gas, evaluating new ways and new methods and new technologies to go further,” she said. “We’re not done.”Starbucks isn’t the only company rethinking plastic packaging. In some markets, McDonald’s has introduced McFlurry cups without plastic lids, and salad boxes and cutlery made from renewable fiber. Late last year, Coca-Cola said it had developed a bottle made entirely from plant-based sources. Coke produced a limited-run of 900 bottles to show that the technology can be commercially scaled.

4-day workweeks may be around the corner. A third of America’s companies are exploring them [Video]
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United Kingdom News

4-day workweeks may be around the corner. A third of America’s companies are exploring them [Video]

Burnout is such a problem for workers that some bosses are considering shrinking the length of the workweek.Nearly one-third (30%) of large U.S. companies are exploring new work schedule shifts such as four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks, according to a KPMG survey of CEOs released this week.The findings show how some executives are searching for ways to attract and retain talent in a red hot job market where many employees feel over-worked and underpaid.We are all working to figure out what is optimal, and we will continue to experiment and pivot, Paul Knopp, chair and CEO of KPMG US, told CNN in an interview.Many workers say they would love a shorter work week.A full 77% of U.S. workers said a four-day, 40-hour workweek would have a positive impact on their wellbeing, according to a Gallup poll released in November. That includes 46% who said it would have an extremely positive effect.The good news for workers is that some studies of four-day workweeks in the United States and Europe have found positive results for well-being and productivity among workers.However, Knopp said it would be premature to definitively say this approach is gaining traction.Its way too early to declare the four-day workweek part of the future. Its still in the experimentation phase, he said.CEOs are still trying to understand how such an approach would work, how it would impact the mental and physical health of employees and whether it drives down costs by creating healthier environments.Some companies that have experimented with shorter workweeks are sticking with it.Video below: 61 U.K. companies participated in the world’s largest four-day workweek test run and the results seem to be sticking a year laterIn the United Kingdom, a large majority of companies that took part in the worlds biggest trial of a four-day workweek were still letting employees work a shorter week a year later. More than half had even made the change permanent.Will AI shorten the workweek?Of course, a shorter workweek may not work everywhere.Knopp said that while a four-day workweek could make sense in finance, marketing and some other office jobs, it may not in industries like healthcare where there are labor shortages.My guess is a widespread four-day workweek could be years away if ever, he said. Youll see companies quietly experimenting with it, but I dont personally foresee widespread adoption in the next couple of years.Video below: In 2023, a pilot study found four-day workweek improved workers lives and increased revenueHowever, Knopp said artificial intelligence may allow bosses to embrace shorter workweeks because the technology should make workers more efficient.Not only can AI automate mundane and routine tasks such as building presentations, crafting emails and writing reports, in the future it will get better at even more complex activities.Its possible that generative AI might make the four-day workweek more realistic, Knopp said.In fact, the KPMG survey found that 61% of US CEOs are encouraging employees to use generative AI to automate mundane tasks to relieve stress and manage their workloads.Hybrid is here to stayAnd in a win for workers, bosses appear to be dialing back their demands for workers to return to full-time in-office work. Just 34% of the US CEOs polled by KPMG said they envision corporate employees who were traditionally based in the office to be back in the physical workplace five days a week in the next three years. Thats down from 62% just a year ago.Instead, 46% of CEOs see these roles being hybrid (up from 34% in 2023), and 3% expect them to be fully remote, KPMG said.The views of employees havent changed. They want more flexibility. Now there is more recognition from CEOs that hybrid is here to stay, Knopp said.