A sustainability movement by Starbucks won’t prevent climate change or eliminate disposable cups or end roadside litter. But the ambitious program will have environmental benefits and might inspire other multinational corporations to act in the best interests of our planet.
The Seattle-based company hopes to eliminate the use of disposable cups by 2025. In addition to inherent logistical issues, there are questions about scaling back one of the globe’s most recognizable branding tools.
“Our cup is ubiquitous, and we love that,” Michael Kobori, the company’s chief sustainability officer, told CNN Business. “But it is also this ubiquitous symbol of a throwaway society.”
That is a problem that goes beyond a coffee seller. But Starbucks officials should be lauded for trying to change their role in creating garbage.
By the end of next year, company officials plan to allow customers throughout North America to either use their own mug or borrow a ceramic or reusable to-go mug after paying a deposit. Worldwide, Starbucks issues about 7 billion disposable cups a year; despite recycling efforts by the company and by customers, that creates a significant waste footprint.
In 2018, according to an audit commissioned by the company, Starbucks produced 868,000 tons of waste. That trash added about 1.3 million tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, out of the corporation’s carbon footprint of 16 million tons of emissions.
Overall, Starbucks hopes to cut waste by 50 percent by 2030. Reducing single-use cardboard cups is a good place to start, but it will take some work.
One company executive said of the borrow-a-cup proposal, “We are testing a number of different programs across the globe,” including “20 different iterations and in eight different markets.” That is in addition to testing at Starbucks’ innovation center, where mock stores are set up with varying versions of a drive-thru layout.
Drive-thru windows and mobile orders account for 70 percent of sales at U.S. stores, and that presents challenges to the goal of eliminating single-use cups. As CNN Business puts it, “After just a few sluggish pickups, customers may take their business elsewhere.”
For too long, that has been the argument put forth by American politicians and corporations. Lawmakers often claim that economic concerns outweigh proposals for addressing carbon emissions or reducing waste.
In environmentally friendly Washington, however, the Legislature last year passed a ban on single-use plastic carry-out bags and prohibited food outlets from automatically including plastic straws or utensils with a customer’s order.
The point is that such measures are workable without creating economic damage. Now, Starbucks is attempting to show that large corporations also can do their part to improve sustainability. “Starbucks partners around the world are passionate about protecting our planet and are at the very center of driving the innovation that enables us to give more than we take from the planet,” CEO Kevin Johnson said.
Indeed, Starbucks is attempting to enhance its branding as a progressive company that looks beyond the bottom line. More so than many other industries in a disposable economy, coffee and latte and cappuccino drinkers are often stereotyped as progressives who respond to virtue signaling.
But by setting an example for other corporations and following through on its sustainability goals, Starbucks can proceed beyond signaling and effect sincere change.
