I was reading Jodie’s blog about Tim Hortons and I couldn’t agree more with her argument. I’ve had to wait in extra long lines for Tim Hortons coffee just because of the “Roll up the Rim” promotion. This is a brilliant marketing campaign that attracts many customers but neglects to think about sustainable practices and environmental impacts.

Since people want to partake in the contest, they are less motivated to bring their own reusable mugs.  As Jodie mentioned, even when people do bring their reusable mugs they are given a second cup for the sole purpose of rolling up the rim. This creates a huge waste and unsustainable behaviour. We should be conditioning people in the opposite way.

If Tim Hortons could come up with a promotion that gets people to win and participate in sustainable behaviours at the same time, this would be truly genius.  Perhaps they could still have a similar contest but only for people who bring their own reusable mug? (They would need to do some brainstorming on this one since people wouldn’t be rolling up the rim any longer, but it could be possible.)

Right now, all Tim Hortons is doing is driving sales. They need to think about their sustainable impact from driving consumerism and giving out an abundance of paper cups that can’t be recycled. (Not to mention still giving a paper cup to those who want to bring their own mug and help the environment.) The least they can do is come up with a recyclable mug incentive. As a Canadian trademark they should become more sustainable and make me proud to call them our nations go-to coffee brand.