Starbucks is giving customers around the world a bold incentive to swap the paper cup for a more eco-friendly option. On Thursday, April 15, the company will reward customers who bring a reusable tumbler into participating stores with a complimentary brewed coffee. This effort is just one of the ways Starbucks is collaborating with customers to reduce environmental impacts.

As part of Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ commitment to environmental stewardship, the company’s goal is to ensure 100 percent of its cups are reusable or recyclable by 2015. In Starbucks latest Global Responsibility Report the company discloses that in fiscal 2009, more than 26 million beverages were served in reusable cups in its company-owned stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. This simple shift in behavior kept approximately 1.2 million pounds of paper from ending up in landfills.

Customers can visit www.starbucks.com/thebigpicture and use the Impact Calculator, powered by the Environmental Defense Fund, to see how many trees can be saved through tumbler use. They can also make a pledge to use tumblers every day and encourage others to do so through social tools such as Facebook.

To illustrate the importance of the customer challenge, Starbucks invited thousands of people to exchange their cups for reusable tumblers while creating a symbolic Sequoia mural for Starbucks on March 17 and 18 in New York City. The mural symbolized the collective impact individuals can make, and during this event, 5,000 individuals pledged to continue using tumblers.