New environmental goals: Starbucks wants to reduce water consumption and waste production
Improve its water and waste management, reduce single-use cups, and offer more plant-based products: on the back of debates on the climate crisis, the American coffee chain Starbucks set new environmental goals.
The company famous for its take-out drinks in plastic or cardboard containers wants to achieve by 2030 to halve the carbon emissions of its activities and its supply chain, as well as the waste sent to landfill by its stores or warehouses.
The group also wants to better use 50% of the water consumed for its activities and the production of its coffee.
Another initiative: Starbucks wants to offer more herbal products. The group has not specified which ones exactly, but is already offering to replace milk with vegetable drinks in its slats and other cappuccinos, knowing that dairy products represented the largest share of the chain’s carbon footprint in 2018 ( 21% against 11% for coffee and 9% for waste).
Starbucks could also offer more products as meat alternatives in its sandwiches. The action of the vegan start-up Beyond Meat jumped in this regard by 13.38% on Wall Street Tuesday at mid-session when that of Starbucks fell by 0.61%.
Among the other initiatives mentioned, the group wishes to invest in more sustainable agricultural practices and make its stores and all of its operations more ecological, from the production of cups to deliveries. They had already announced in 2018 the removal of plastic straws by 2020.
“It won’t be easy,” said managing director Kevin Johnson in a letter.
The group had for example set itself in 2008 targets on the reuse of objects and recycling “unprecedented for our industry, but also largely dependent on radical changes in customer behavior,” he said.
“The results did not meet our expectations and underscored the need for a different approach.”
Like other large companies, Starbucks is facing increasing pressure from consumers and investors over the issue of its environmental impact.
A few are trying to initiate change, such as asset manager BlackRock who announced last week that they wants to be a leader in sustainable investing, or Microsoft who has promised that their carbon footprint will be negative by 2030.
