Environmental Sustainability of Starbucks: Challenges and Solutions

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN OF STARBUCKS 1
Supply Chain of Starbucks
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SUPPLY CHAIN OF STARBUCKS 2
Discuss the environmental sustainability of the organization, challenges and solutions
Starbucks has made environmental sustainability a priority since its inception as a coffee
dealer. Starbucks has been focused to making its stores more sustainable. Worldwide, the coffee
retailer operates more than 28,000 stores. According to (MacDonald, 2017), Starbucks is
undoubtedly an early adopter of climate strategy since 2005 when the company began to invest
in renewable energy. In partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council and the World
Wildlife, Starbucks has set environmental sustainability standards namely energy and water
conservation, renewable energy, healthy environments, water diversion, and partner
engagements.
According to (Garnett, 2013), Starbucks purchases new technologies and upgrades the
current state of their stores like weatherization. As a result, water use has been drove down by 30
percent and energy use reduced by 25%. Also, Starbucks has been at the forefront to conserve
renewable energy by either making direct investments or buying credits into the grid. Recently,
Starbucks launched a plan to source 100 percent of energy utilized across the Canadian and U.S.
stores from renewable energy (Drake & Donald, 2015). Waste diversion and responsible
materials are other standards embraced by Starbucks to enhance environmental sustainability.
Starbucks partners with Feeding America in order to donate the unsold food to the U.S., but
under a principle to ensure waste diversion (Ivanov, 2017). In addition, Starbucks ensures a
healthy environment by taking measures to maintain air quality and temperature to optimize
comfort and sustainability.
However, Starbucks faces various challenges in its environmental sustainability
measures. The biggest challenge for Starbucks is recycling of the cups when trying to develop
cups that are environmentally friendly while at the same time reducing or diverting wastes
(DuBois, Astakhova, & DuBois, 2013). In the year 2008, Starbucks generated 4 billion
single-serve cups as waste, an issue that resulted to litter and other landfills. Tackling this
problem has always interfered with Starbuck’s environment sustainability goals. Plastic pollution
is another area that Starbucks has failed as far as sustainability goals are concerned. In 2008,
Starbuck pledged to make 100 percent recyclable paper cup and ensure that 25 percent of drinks
are sold in reusable cups (Lieb & Robert, 2010). Until now, Starbuck has failed to deliver
upon this promise. The other challenge facing Starbuck’s sustainability is the increased price for

SUPPLY CHAIN OF STARBUCKS 3
coffee beans which is affecting their pricing and profitability. As far as sustainability is
concerned, Starbucks must be socially responsible to the target market, and this goal has been
affected by the unstable coffee beans prices used in the production of coffee (Linda &
Katherine, 2015). The last challenge is food packaging across all worldwide stores. In any
case, food packaging has not been 100 percent success and this attracts food wastage which
reduce its profitability.
To resolve the sustainability challenges, Starbucks can take various measures. Launching
a “Break Free from Plastic” campaign will help Starbucks to curb these problems before the
global plastic pollution issue overwhelms its sustainability in the market. First, Starbucks should
create 100 percent recyclable paper cups that have no plastic lining (Wu & Mark, 2014). The
other approach is recycling food packaging and cups across all worldwide stores. Also,
Starbucks needs to lower plastic pollution cases by stop single-use plastics such as straws. In
addition, Starbucks should promote the use of reusable cups and also educate customers to
transform their consumption habits (MacDonald, 2017). The last action is to publicly report on
the amount and type of plastics that they use to package their coffee and food. In this campaign,
Starbucks should partner with Plastic Pollution Coalition, Texas Campaign for the Environment,
Clean Water Action, Stand Earth, Greenpeace USA and other organizations who advocate for
environmental sustainability.
A discussion/conclusion about what you have learned from the supply chain management of
real-world applications.
Supply chain management plays a major role in the success of a company. The main goal
of supply chain management is to improve the performance of an organization to ensure that
customers get satisfied with the quality of products and services being offered (Wu & Mark,
2014). Big companies like Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Walmart rely heavily on their supply
chain systems to ensure smooth flow of products to the final consumer. In real world, supply
chain ensures a constant flow of material, products, and services from the producer to the end
user.
In a supply chain management system, a wide range of processes and components is
involved. In real world practice, a supply chain system is set to ensure safe storage of raw