Starbucks To Discontinue Single-Use Cups In South Korea By 2025

(RTTNews) - Starbucks (SBUX) has announced concrete plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent by the year 2025 in South Korea. The company also unveiled plans to increase employment opportunities in the country by 30 percent by the same year.

As part of its Starbucks 2030 environmental goals to bring down carbon, water and waste footprints by half worldwide, the company will completely discontinue the single-use cup in all its South Korea stores by 2025. In summer, the company will launch a reusable cup program in some of its Jeju stores and then moving on to other places over the next four years.

Under the program, people will get their coffee in a reusable cup for a small deposit and they can scan their cup at a related store's contactless return kiosk.

Additionally, the company said that by 2025, it is committed to create over 5,500 new employment opportunities in South Korea, equivalent to 30 percent of its present workforce. The company will also diversify its employment opportunities to include young graduates, return-to-work mothers, elderly citizens and persons with disabilities.

Starbucks also said that it has designed an environmentally-friendly menu as part of its climate change actions so that customers can enjoy a wide variety of plant-based and local ingredients as part of the Starbucks Experience.