Serious about Sustainability? It’s got to be one of the most convenient products ever—especially for consumers who want their coffee (or tea or other hot beverage) efficiently delivered without much hassle. The Keurig K-Cups® were invented in 1992 by John Sylvan. Like any innovator, Sylvan was looking for a better way. For him, it was finding a better way to provide his 30–40 daily cups of coffee in a way that was customizable and easy.  The single-serve brewing pod he created became the Keurig K-Cup. Interesting note: Keurig translates to “neat” in Dutch, and the Keurig machine and its ubiquitous K-Cup  are quite neat. The single-brew machine is a very efficient and convenient alternative to the traditional coffee pot  or  to stopping and picking up drive-through coffee every morning.  However, what Sylvan didn’t anticipate was (1) the overwhelming popularity of the approach and (2) the amount of waste the single-serve pods would create because of that popularity. Today, almost one in three homes has a pod-based coffee machine. And the sales of those pods accounted for a vast majority of the revenues of the company that makes them—Keurig Green Mountain. The company’s mission is “A Keurig brewer on every counter and a beverage for every occasion.”  And the company is taking another step toward that goal of a beverage for  every  occasion through its partnership with Coca-Cola Company. It will begin selling, at the end of 2015, a machine called “Keurig Cold,” which will be used to dispense Coke’s various brands. The Dr Pepper Snapple group also recently signed on to allow its flavor options for the new machine.  Although the Keurig machine is popular and a convenience, it also has a more troubling characteristic: the constant need to buy more K-Cups. They’re designed as single-serve, and with 9.8 billion of them sold in 2014, that’s a lot of K-Cups hitting landfills, because they are  not  recyclable. Those 9.8 billion K-Cups would circle the globe more than 12 times. Environmentalists have criticized the company for its slow response to creating and selling a recyclable version of the pod. And it’s not that it can’t be done. For instance, when the K-Cup design patent expired in 2012, other companies brought out single-serve cups that  are  completely biodegradable and recyclable. To further highlight the sustainability issue, an anonymous YouTube video called “Kill the K-Cup” hit the Internet in early 2015. The apocalyptic nature of the video highlighted the extreme waste and irresponsibility of continuing to make coffee in a way “that simply cannot be sustained.”  It was eventually revealed that the creator of the video was a production company in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose employees loved their Keurig until they began to notice the growing pile of discarded K-Cups that, despite great Canadian recycling programs, could not easily be recycled. So what does the company say? Keurig’s chief sustainability officer, Monique Oxender, says that.

1. Serious about Sustainability?
It’s got to be one of the most convenient products ever—
especially for consumers who want their coffee (or tea or other
hot beverage) efficiently delivered without much hassle. The
Keurig K-Cups® were invented in 1992 by John Sylvan. Like
any innovator, Sylvan was looking for a better way. For him, it
was finding a better way to provide his 30–40 daily cups of
coffee in a way that was customizable and easy. The single-
serve brewing pod he created became the Keurig K-Cup.
Interesting note: Keurig translates to “neat” in Dutch, and the
Keurig machine and its ubiquitous K-Cup
are
quite neat. The single-brew machine is a very efficient and
convenient alternative to the traditional coffee pot
or
to stopping and picking up drive-through coffee every morning.
However, what Sylvan didn’t anticipate was (1) the
overwhelming popularity of the approach and (2) the amount of
waste the single-serve pods would create because of that
popularity.
Today, almost one in three homes has a pod-based coffee
machine. And the sales of those pods accounted for a vast
majority of the revenues of the company that makes them—
Keurig Green Mountain. The company’s mission is “A Keurig
brewer on every counter and a beverage for every occasion.”
And the company is taking another step toward that goal of a
beverage for
every
occasion through its partnership with Coca-Cola Company. It
will begin selling, at the end of 2015, a machine called “Keurig
Cold,” which will be used to dispense Coke’s various brands.

2. The Dr Pepper Snapple group also recently signed on to allow
its flavor options for the new machine. Although the Keurig
machine is popular and a convenience, it also has a more
troubling characteristic: the constant need to buy more K-Cups.
They’re designed as single-serve, and with 9.8 billion of them
sold in 2014, that’s a lot of K-Cups hitting landfills, because
they are
not
recyclable. Those 9.8 billion K-Cups would circle the globe
more than 12 times.
Environmentalists have criticized the company for its slow
response to creating and selling a recyclable version of the pod.
And it’s not that it can’t be done. For instance, when the K-Cup
design patent expired in 2012, other companies brought out
single-serve cups that
are
completely biodegradable and recyclable. To further highlight
the sustainability issue, an anonymous YouTube video called
“Kill the K-Cup” hit the Internet in early 2015. The apocalyptic
nature of the video highlighted the extreme waste and
irresponsibility of continuing to make coffee in a way “that
simply cannot be sustained.” It was eventually revealed that the
creator of the video was a production company in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, whose employees loved their Keurig until they began
to notice the growing pile of discarded K-Cups that, despite
great Canadian recycling programs, could not easily be
recycled.
So what does the company say? Keurig’s chief sustainability
officer, Monique Oxender, says that the company isn’t happy
with its track record either. In 2014, the company pledged to
create a fully recyclable version of the K-Cup by 2020. Of
course, the critics have jumped all over the 2020 goal saying
that five years is a long time to continue to fill up landfills and
pointing out that the plastic used in the K-Cups will never be

3. able to be fully recyclable because of the type of plastic it is. In
its annual sustainability report, Keurig Green Mountain
describes its efforts to strengthen its global citizenship and
sustainability leadership.
71 (Links to an external site.)
Others have said that despite the outcry against the K-Cups,
there are some sustainability benefits to the Keurig machine and
its single-serve pods. For instance, they’re likely to save
electricity over a coffee pot that’s constantly “on” to keep the
coffee warm. Also, the pods have been shown to be a more
efficient way of extracting coffee from grounds, thus saving
resources. And other approaches to coffee making likely use
more water in brewing coffee that may not actually be
consumed and then dumped down the drain. So, although
“environmental awareness is never a bad thing,” are the critics
overreacting to the situation?
Prepare a 2-page paper answering the following questions.
Remember, use 10-12 pt font and APA format!
What global issues do you see here? What
ethical/socialresponsibility issues do you see here?
Are
the critics overreacting to the situation? Do you think Keurig
Green Mountain’s managers are handling this situation in the
best way, ethically and responsibly? What else could they do to
be more ethical and responsible?
Are Keurig’s proposed actions best described as social
obligation, social responsiveness, or social responsibility?
Explain.
What do you think the statement “environmental awareness is
never a bad thing” means?