The company’s goals are laudable but the biggest problems are in the parking lot and the garbage bin.
Starbucks recently announced a Global Greener Stores commitment, and will design, build and operate 10,000 greener stores by 2025.
© Starbucks
There are many nice things about this pledge, including the drive for energy efficiency, water stewardship, the use of renewable energy, and responsible materials. All lovely things. But as Katherine noted in her recent discussion of single-use plastic straws, the real problem is with one that Starbucks is not even trying to solve.
It’s all about the culture.
© New standalone green starbucks
It also is a drive-through culture, where people idle their big SUVs waiting for their takeout coffee in disposable cups. Nine years ago I asked Tony Gale, Corporate Architect for Starbucks at the time, about how he justifies building green Starbucks (which is what we are still talking about today).
If one builds a LEED platinum building in the middle of the suburbs and everyone drives to it, there is not much point in the thing. Are you looking at all at issue of drive-throughs, the transportation intensity of your stores?
But nothing really has changed, other than the SUVs are bigger.
Ruben Schade/CC BY 2.0
And then there is the issue of disposables. Ten years ago Starbucks promised that 25 percent of their sales would be in reusable cups by 2015. In 2011 they realized that was impossible so they changed it to 5 percent. Now they have given up altogether. “The majority of beverages are consumed outside of our stores; we are resetting our goal to focus on increasing the use of personal tumblers. Our new goal is to serve 5 percent of all beverages made in our stores in personal tumblers.”
But they are still selling six billion disposable cups and lids every year In March they promised to invest $ 10 million to develop a ‘NextGen Cup’, “the first step in the development of a global end-to-end solution that would allow cups around the world to be diverted from landfills and composted or given a second life as another cup, napkin or even a chair – anything that can use recycled material.” But they do not have one yet, because cups all have a plastic liner to keep them from getting soggy and to meet health requirements.
The problem is exactly the one that Katherine raised. Starbucks can do all these green initiatives, build their solar powered stores, but fundamentally their business is building standalone drive-throughs where people roll up in SUVs to buy stuff in disposable, non-recyclable packaging, much of it with plastic lids that are no better than straws when it comes to saving the oceans. It’s all about the culture.
Poolie/CC BY 2.0
Starbucks started in urban locations, and was all about a coffee culture. You sat down and had a coffee, maybe did some work or met a friend. You could even use the bathroom. Now, the vast bulk of their business is takeout and their market is in the suburbs, because that is where the majority of Americans live.
This is where it is up to us, to try and change the culture. Walk into your neighborhood Starbucks, demand a reusable cup, sit down and smell the coffee.
