We’re getting there…

Electric vehicles? Check.

Solar roof tiles that can capture the suns rays and turn them into energy? Check.

Batteries that can store that power for use in your home? Check.

Single use coffee cups…?

I don’t own a Tesla (this is a photo from a Tesla waiting room in Barcelona), but I found it interesting that one of the most visible companies pushing the climate agenda has missed such an obvious thing.

Convenient yes… but what might it really signal?

This could be a one-off, so it wouldn’t be fair to sledge the whole Tesla brand without knowing more – it could be one showroom where one manager decided it would be cool to have branded coffee cups, without thinking about the footprint that creates.

A crystal clear company vision can guide this kind of decision-making. Vision and mission statements shouldn’t just be packed with impressive words. They’re often filters that guides decision-making to the point where asking “does doing this thing further the vision or hamper it?” should actually tell you whether to do the thing or not.

Tesla’s mission statement is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. While that literally only talks about energy, there’s an undertone of improving things on the planet. One could argue that contributing to a landfill issue goes against that, so had the decision to buy the coffee machine and branded paper coffee cups been run through the filter and asked “does this further the mission or hamper it?”… in my opinion anyway, there are better ways to further the mission.