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64 • Green Project Management

sible” company with a conscience. In fact, they do work hard on fair trade
for the coffee itself.
But the K-cups are another story. They are made from nonrecyclable
materials. And although the cups themselves are small, their numbers
are huge. Last year alone, over 1.6 billion (yes, billion!) cups were used.
My calculations say that this is enough K-cups to circle the earth one and
a quarter times. And they all go into landfills after their seconds of use
and stay there for hundreds or thousands of years. And that’s just Keurig.
There is also Tassimo, Senseo, and others. Further, the forecast for K-cup
sales is 3 billion in 2010 and 5 billion in 2011. So now we are talking about
a chain of K-cups from 2009, 2010, and 2011 made up of 9 or 10 billion units
and circling the earth eight times!
This has prompted Keurig to make this environmental statement:

Keurig’s environmental Statement:

Sharing Our Commitment for a Better Planet
All of us at Keurig are citizens first and employees second! We are committed
as a company to responsible business practices that sustain our environment
for all.
In fact, our parent company Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR)
is a leader in developing Fair Trade/Organic coffee blends that are great for
coffee lovers, coffee growers, and our planet. Also GMCR is repeatedly cited
for best practices in business ethics.
As such, we’d like to share what we are doing at Keurig and what we are
doing in cooperation with GMCR to build a better world for both gourmet
coffee lovers … and lovers of best practices in corporate responsibility.
Sustainable Packaging
K-Cup Portion Pack Packaging is an area of major environmental concern
for all consumer product companies. As the single-cup coffee market and our
Keurig brewing systems grow in popularity, we understand that the impact of
the K-Cup Portion Pack waste stream is one of our most significant environ-
mental challenges. The K-Cup package is made up of three main elements—
the cup itself, a filter and an aluminum foil top. The polyethylene coating of
the foil—as well as the process of heat-sealing the various elements—makes
recycling difficult.
However, this packaging approach prevents oxygen, light and moisture
from degrading the coffee. Without the barrier the packaging materials pro-
vide, we could not maintain the quality and freshness of the coffee, which
means that all the resources and effort put into growing and roasting great
coffee would be wasted. Finding a more environmentally-friendly approach