The new doublespeak - part one

This really gets my goat. Purchased a coffee from Pacific Coffee this morning and apart from committing the heinous act of serving up an average brew, Pacific Coffee is also actively going against the company's stated environmental commitments of "Continuous Environmental Support".

As you can clearly see from these photos, the level of wastage is absurd. For two small cups of coffee I was handed two paper cups (obviously), two paper heat protectors, some ultra-complex cup carrier and on top of that a ridiculously large carry bag to put the cup holder in. Oh and don't forget the handful of serviettes and plastic spoons.





Now I could have said no to all of this and I probably should have, but instead I let it all play out and see far and how much would come with these two average brews.

I'm one of thousands of take-away customers that walk through the doors of Pacific Coffee every day, so you can image if every customer was afforded the same treatment, that is a lot of paper, plastic and subsequent wastage.

A quick look around its website and Pacific Coffee says it is committed to environmental protection.

"By taking steps to reduce waste from our operations and recycle, we can preserve the earth's natural resources," it said.

"This commitment is reflected in the environmentally-friendly products that we use such as our serviettes and corporate brochures; and the policies we promote like encouraging our customers to send us their valuable comments by e-mail."

As a consumer what we can learn from this is that when it comes to environmental sustainability, we should not rely on corporates to dish out sustainable rhetoric and instead take action ourselves to avoid over-consumption.

Maybe I should email this to them.

This week keep an eye on The Pitch HK for a in-depth look local coffee houses, next on the hit list Starbucks.