Starbucks Reusable Cups and the Missing Return Rate

I've had a woodshed full of firewood for six years, and I've barely burned any of it. A Halloween fire pit with friends made me stop and work out why, and it led me straight back to food waste.This is a short story episode about where waste starts, where it ends, and why one person's waste is another person's treasure. I talk about the food in our fridge that can't go out of date, the mouldy food my friends couldn't believe I'd eat, and the evenings Laura and I didn't spend by the fire because the wood felt too precious. If you think about waste at home or at work, this one will feel familiar.You'll leave with one question to ask yourself this week: what are you saving for a special occasion that you could enjoy now?The written version is on Substack if you'd like to read it or share it: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me: are you a saver or a burner?Mentioned in this episode:Sponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast AdvertisingKeep informed on Sustainability NewsI'm Will Richardson, Head of Ecosystems at 51toCarbonZero and a sustainability advisor with 25 years in the field. I founded Green Element in 2004 and spent two decades building it into one of Europe's most respected sustainability consultancies before it merged with 51toCarbonZero in November 2025. Climate action is both an obligation and an opportunity, and that's the thread running through everything I write here. I co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software recognised as a key player in the Global Carbon Accounting Software Market, and I'm a Fellow of IEMA and a Chartered Environmentalist. Each week, I break down what's actually happening in sustainability: the data, the regulation, the greenwash worth calling out, and the practical steps businesses can take right now. No jargon, no doom-mongering, just clear thinking for people who need to make real decisions. I also host the Sustainability Solved podcast with Charlie Luxton, 200+ episodes and counting, where we talk to the people building the solutions. Based in Scotland. Writing for business leaders who want sustainability to make commercial sense, not just moral sense. My Personal Substack

A lot of tenders lose marks on the sustainability page before anyone reads it properly. If you've lost a contract in the last year without being told exactly why, there's a good chance this was the reason.Sustainability has moved from a tick box to real points in the final decision. We go through the three things evaluators mark against. Baseline compliance comes first: a missing Carbon Reduction Plan or a gap in your Scope 3 data can mean a score of zero. Measurable metrics come next, where good work loses marks because the answer describes the culture instead of the contract. Supply chain data is the third, and it's quietly knocking out incumbent suppliers. If you bid for public sector or large corporate contracts, this one is for you and your bid team.You'll leave with one exercise for this week. Reread your last losing tender's sustainability answer with a red pen. Circle every number and underline every adjective. If the underlining wins, you've found where the points went.If you'd like an honest read on whether your sustainability answers are costing you points, book 30 minutes with me: https://tidycal.com/willrichardson/ssbywrpodcast30Read on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me the strangest sustainability question you've seen in a tender.Mentioned in this episode:Experienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact MeSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising

Of eight things the world's biggest companies do on climate, only one is linked to emissions actually falling. Trellis has the study, and it's at number 7.This is the Monday countdown: ten sustainability stories ranked by how much coverage they got across the newsletters I read, from Trellis and ESG Today to edie, BusinessGreen, Bloomberg Green and Axios. We cover the US midterms turning into an energy election, COP31 opening in Antalya with a push on electrification, Europe telling countries to plan for 3°C of warming, the UK's new Energy Independence Bill, AI's growing power bill, El Niño reaching bank loan books and the California SB 253 reporting deadline on 10 November.If sustainability leadership is part of your job, whether you sit in sustainability, finance or operations, it's a quick way to know what moved and what it means for your organisation.You'll leave with one move for this week: check whether your climate target is validated, and how long it has been in place. Smaller business? Start with one near-term target you can measure.Three facts close the episode that won't make the headlines, including how many minutes of global emissions engineered carbon removal takes out each year.For the written version with every source linked, subscribe on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me which of the three facts surprised you most.Mentioned in this episode:Keep informed on Sustainability NewsI'm Will Richardson, Head of Ecosystems at 51toCarbonZero and a sustainability advisor with 25 years in the field. I founded Green Element in 2004 and spent two decades building it into one of Europe's most respected sustainability consultancies before it merged with 51toCarbonZero in November 2025. Climate action is both an obligation and an opportunity, and that's the thread running through everything I write here. I co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software recognised as a key player in the Global Carbon Accounting Software Market, and I'm a Fellow of IEMA and a Chartered Environmentalist. Each week, I break down what's actually happening in sustainability: the data, the regulation, the greenwash worth calling out, and the practical steps businesses can take right now. No jargon, no doom-mongering, just clear thinking for people who need to make real decisions. I also host the Sustainability Solved podcast with Charlie Luxton, 200+ episodes and counting, where we talk to the people building the solutions. Based in Scotland. Writing for business leaders who want sustainability to make commercial sense, not just moral sense. My Personal SubstackSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising

One of my founder reflections is that your marketing team is probably making at least one sustainability claim right now that won’t hold up. Not on purpose; regulators are looking for exactly these claims, and they’re finding them.We go through the five claims under the most pressure:a “certified sustainable” label you designed yourself“industry leader” with no proofnet zero by 2050 with nothing in between“carbon neutral” built on offsets“fully recyclable” when most customers can’t recycle the pack where they liveEach one comes with a real case, from ASOS and Boohoo’s commitments to the CMA, to DWS’s fines in the US and Germany, to Shell’s court battle. If you run marketing, sustainability or a brand in Food & Beverage or Media and Advertising, this is the list to check your own copy against.You’ll leave with one exercise for this week. Take your five most-used sustainability claims and write the operational fact that proves each one. Any claim with nothing next to it is the one to fix first.If you’d like an honest read on where your claims stand, book 30 minutes with me: https://tidycal.com/willrichardson/ssbywrpodcast30Read on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me which of the five you found on your own website.CLIP MOMENT: “It’s never the sustainability work that gets a business fined. It’s the gap between what the marketing says and what the operations do.”Mentioned in this episode:Sponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast AdvertisingExperienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact Me

The gas plants being built to power AI in the US could undo fifteen years of power-sector emissions cuts by 2030. It's the second week running that AI's emissions bill tops the countdown, and it now sits in almost every company's Scope 3.This is the weekly sustainability news top 10 for sustainability, finance and marketing leaders who need the news to make commercial sense. We cover the UK's Jackdaw approval and £2 billion Energy Wealth Fund, the UN's emissions gap before COP31, the EU's new climate resilience framework, US and EU methane rollbacks, Lula's re-election and deforestation risk, ISSB nature reporting, the GHG Protocol's Scope 2 delay, and the Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Danone recycling claims.You'll leave with one move for this week: list every environmental claim your business makes and write the evidence next to each one. Anything you can't evidence in a sentence gets reworded or cut.Get the written version with every source linked on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me which of the three facts at the end surprised you most.CLIP MOMENT: “Companies that leaned hardest on pictures of nature and smiling people were less likely to make the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index.”Mentioned in this episode:Sponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast AdvertisingExperienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact Me

If you can’t explain net zero in one sentence, neither can your customers. And if they can’t repeat what you stand for on climate, you’re adding noise, not building trust.We start with the sentence that holds up in front of regulators, journalists and buyers: net zero means balancing the greenhouse gases you emit with an equal amount you permanently remove. Then we cover the order most businesses get wrong. You reduce hard first, deal with the small residual last, and never let offsets do the work of reduction. We look at how Patagonia, Tesco, Microsoft and TDC NET put a real number at the heart of their climate story. Boring, specific and checkable beats impressive-sounding.You’ll leave with one test for this week. Write your net zero sentence with one number and one date. Read it to a colleague outside the sustainability team, and ask them to repeat it back tomorrow.If you’d like help turning your net zero statement into something people can remember and regulators can check, book 30 minutes with me: https://tidycal.com/willrichardson/ssbywrpodcast30Read on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and send me your one-sentence version.CLIP MOMENT: “That number does work an adjective never can.”Mentioned in this episode:Experienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact MeSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising

Five tech companies are forecast to emit around 215 million tonnes of CO2e this year. That’s more than most countries, and it lands straight in your Scope 3.This is the Monday countdown: the 10 sustainability stories that got the most coverage this week, ranked and explained in plain English. If you lead sustainability, finance or strategy in a large organisation, or advise one, this is for you. We cover the forecast for hyperscaler emissions and AI’s growing power demand, the ISSB’s proposed nature disclosure rules and TNFD reaching 836 adopters, UNEP’s warning that a 1.5°C overshoot is now unavoidable, California’s 10 November SB 253 reporting deadline, the widening crackdown on green claims, and new research linking climate transition plans to cheaper borrowing. Every story is credited to the publication that reported it, including Trellis, ESG Today, edie and Axios.You’ll leave with one move for this week: take your transition plan to your treasury team and check it for gaps before your next refinancing. Smaller business? Write a one-page plan with a baseline, a target and three costed actions.Stay to the end for three facts that won’t make the headlines, including one about battery storage fires that flips the usual story.For the written version with every source linked, subscribe on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolved Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me which of the ten stories lands hardest for your business.CLIP MOMENT: “On 1.25 billion dollars of debt, that’s about 10 million dollars a year.” (end of story #4; timestamp not known)Mentioned in this episode:Experienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact MeSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising

In 2005 I had a landfill site, a county council and a CFO happy to fund a community wind turbine. Then one phone call ended it all.This is the story of Wind Element, the community wind co-op I set up straight after my master’s. The idea was simple: put a turbine on an unused Veolia landfill site near Eastleigh and give cheap energy back to the people living on its doorstep.We had nearly everything lined up. Hampshire County Council backed it, Veolia liked the use of the land and the PR, and we had a plan to win over locals by talking to them face to face, the way the best developers did. I even persuaded a managing director friend to drive me to the meeting in his Lotus, so I looked bigger than a one-person band.Then the turbine supplier changed the rules; minimum order, three turbines. Demand had exploded, and a single-turbine co-op no longer made the cut.I also talk about the anti-wind headlines of the early 2000s, the scare stories about birds, noise and flicker, and why newspapers kept printing them even when most readers didn’t agree. Misinformation about renewables isn’t new, and it held community wind back for years.If you’re working on a community energy project, or any good idea that stalled at the last hurdle, there’s something here for you. Local ownership of clean power is both a fairness issue and a business opportunity, and we’re far better placed to deliver it now than we were in 2005.Want to talk through your own project? Book 30 minutes with me: https://tidycal.com/willrichardson/ssbywrpodcast30Subscribe to Sustainability Solved by Will Richardson for more stories from 25 years of making sustainability work in the real world.Mentioned in this episode:Sponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast AdvertisingExperienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact Me

Starbucks says its reusable cup scheme cuts waste. I went looking for the independent study that proves it; there isn’t one.The maths on reusable cups genuinely works, as long as each cup gets used enough times to beat the single-use cup it replaces. Starbucks has published strong return rates from its own controlled pilots. Across its real markets, the return rate isn’t published anywhere, and that gap is the whole story. If you lead sustainability, packaging or marketing in a Food & Beverage business, this is where scrutiny is landing first. New EU consumer rules are now in force, and the UK’s CMA can fine businesses directly for misleading claims.You’ll leave with one exercise for this week. List every reusable, recyclable or sustainable packaging claim you make. Write the number that proves it next to each one. Tighten or pause any claim without a number.If you’d like an honest read on whether your packaging claims would survive scrutiny, book 30 minutes with me: https://tidycal.com/willrichardson/ssbywrpodcast30Read on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonFollow the show, and tell me which packaging claim you’d most like to see the real data behind.CLIP MOMENT: “Loud on the launch. Quiet on the data.”Mentioned in this episode:Experienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact MeSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising

I was asked to run masterclasses on the environmental impact of AI, and I paused. My gut feeling is that AI’s environmental impact could dissipate within a year, possibly sooner.In this episode I look at why. People are already building language models on phones. Heavy users like me may have reached the limit of what we need AI to do. And I ask why so many data centres are being built: is it for the cars and technology of the future, or to prove growth to shareholders? Could we end up running our own AI agents at home, powered by our own solar panels?The real answer for organisations: future-proof and risk assess your use of AI now.Read the full article on Substack: https://willsussolved.substack.com/Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willsussolvedConnect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sustsolvedbywillrichardsonMentioned in this episode:Experienced Sustainability ExecutiveDo you know a company that needs my experience? Sustainability executive with 25 years helping organisations turn environmental ambition into commercial results. Founded Green Element in 2004 and grew it into one of the UK’s larger sustainability consultancies and one of the country’s first B Corps, leading a team of around 30 and serving 500+ organisations. Experienced across marketing, sales and executive leadership: running a business day to day, and working alongside other organisations’ C-suites to build sustainability into how they operate. Clients include some of the UK’s largest organisations, among them The Guardian, Grant Thornton, Linklaters and Fevertree, where the work helped reshape each business through a sustainability lens. Co-created Compare Your Footprint, carbon accounting software used in 30+ countries and sold in 2025. Eight years hosting Sustainability Solved, with 230+ episodes and 30,000+ followers, building a deep knowledge base from conversations with business leaders on what actually works. Guest lecturer on master’s programmes, and writer and co-producer of environmental training courses, including the first fully online IEMA-approved EMS implementation course. The thread through all of it: a sustainable business can also be a successful business.Contact MeSponsorship For Main PodcastPodcast Advertising