As we wrap up 2024, Jonathan Tostevin, CEO of Muuse, takes a moment to reflect on the year’s milestones, the hurdles overcome, and the exciting vision for 2025.
Looking back, what were Muuse’s biggest wins in 2024?
This year has been another eventful one for Muuse, January 2024 already feels like a long time ago! There’s some good wins to reflect on. Let’s start with the biggest one: We achieved 1 million single-use items diverted from waste streams!
This is a huge credit to every single person who’s borrowed and returned an item, our amazing team (past and present), and our enterprising partners and investors who continue to believe in a more sustainable future. Since we’re working across four markets—Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States—and each has seen growth in its own way, we’d love to take a moment to share what’s been happening in each one.
Singapore
We’ve made solid progress across corporate catering, events, and establishing ourselves as a trusted partner in helping shape Singapore’s vision as a forward-thinking city in waste management.
On the catering side, our partnership with Catersmith has enabled us to tap into a broader network of corporate clients, strengthening our presence in the office catering sector.Also, we have serviced our largest event yet at Marina Bay Sands, the MBS OneParty, with up to almost 20,000 drinks served in reusable cups in one single day.
Additionally, our work with Sentosa Development Corporation and Mount Faber Leisure to pilot a new approach for the tourism economy has shown promising results. We’re eager to build on this momentum with more developments in the year ahead.
Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, we’ve seen strong growth with key milestones, particularly in coffee chains and property-wide initiatives.
Our collaboration with Starbucks Hong Kong has been a standout success, expanding to 35 stores and demonstrating the scalability of our solutions.
Our partnership with Swire Properties strengthened with the launch of Muuse at CityPlaza, following earlier collaborations at Taikoo Place and Pacific Place. Together, we have partnered with over 35 restaurants and cafes, using Muuse reusable food containers.
Our reusable cups featured prominently at several major events in the city this year, including Moon Trekker, ReThink HK, Tong Chong Street Market, the Swire Properties White Christmas Street Fair, the Greenpeace regional seminar and more. Notably, reusable containers were a default option at all the events we supported, showing how Hong Kong is leading the way in changing behaviours for the environment.
Looking ahead, we have ambitious growth plans for 2025 with all our key client partners.
Canada In Canada, one of our key milestones this year has been the launch of Banff Borrows in Banff, located in Canada’s first National Park. This innovative reusable cup program allows visitors and residents to borrow cups from participating locations for up to 30 days at no cost, helping to significantly reduce single-use waste heading to landfills.
Our partnership with Banff has strengthened our presence in the region and is paving the way for scaling similar initiatives in other markets.
On the events front, we’ve seen strong success with programs like the Evergreen Brick Works Farmers Market, where over 135,000 single-use items have been replaced with reusables this year so far. Across Canada, more broadly, we’ve serviced over 100 events this year. Moving forward, the challenge lies in expanding beyond events to drive broader adoption of reusable solutions, meeting the growing demand for practical and scalable sustainability efforts in communities nationwide.
United States Muuse was the service provider managing the reverse logistics and underpinning data platform of the Petaluma Reusable Cup Project - a first-of-its-kind initiative where reusable cups were deployed as the default option across a whole U.S. city.
The project was led and designed by Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy, and delivered in partnership with the NextGen Consortium brand partners including Starbucks, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Peet's Coffee and Yum! Brands. During the project, over 220,000 reusable cups were returned, showcasing the opportunity for reuse at scale.
What lessons did Muuse learn this year?
One of the key takeaways was understanding the pace of change in reusable adoption. It’s steady, not radical. We’ve learned to temper our excitement with the realities of gradual progress. It’s a long game, requires grit and perseverance, and while key milestones like diverting 1 million items from the waste stream are inspiring, they remind us that building a market for reusables takes persistence.
What’s kept the team motivated through the challenges of 2024?
Honestly, it’s the belief in what we’re doing and the impact we’re making. We all know this is going to happen, it’s just a matter of when. Seeing milestones like the 1 million items diverted from waste streams or launching new programs with major partners keeps the energy up.
Our team also deserves so much credit. Despite being remote and spread across markets, there’s a strong sense of unity. Everyone is invested in each other’s success, and the collaboration within the team has been inspiring. Bringing on new hires like Caroline in Singapore, Natasha in Hong Kong, Sofiya in Canada, and Hanif to support our data management has strengthened us even more.
What’s Muuse’s vision for the future?
Our mission is to make reuse second nature. That means integrating reuse into infrastructure and daily habits so it becomes the default choice. We’re focused on creating systems that make it as simple and convenient as possible for people to choose reusables. We have some exciting projects lined up for 2025 to scale our impact further and make effortless reuse a reality. We believe that a world with less waste is possible! And every step we take brings us closer to that goal. Watch this space!
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