Sustainability Chiefs: Starbucks wants to address climate issues one coffee at a time

beans is becoming more and more challenging. Even the former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz has acknowledged that climate change is going to play a bigger role in affecting the quality and integrity of coffee. In the first part of our sustainability chiefs episode, we'll explore how Starbucks is adapting to this new normal, working to reduce its environmental footprint and responding to the growing

demands of conscious consumers. Joining us today is the Chief Sustainability Officer of Starbucks, Michael Kori. Welcome to the climate conversations, Michael. Just curious before we start, what Starbucks drink did you have this morning to kick start your day? You know, this morning, I just had a brewed coffee. That's what I usually drink. French Press I think I had uh Costa Rica. Excellent choice. All right.

So let's take you back to 2020. When you started your journey with Starbucks, you made a significant career move from levi's where you have been the head of sustainability for over two decades. So what inspired you to take up this role? Well, I would say Julie that I'm actually inspired by things that happened to me when I was young when I was in high school, I was very inspired by a biology teacher who helped found our high school recycling club

called Student Action for the Environment. So I was involved in recycling way back when I was a kid and I actually went to Asia when I was younger as well and spent a number of years at a place called the Asia Foundation doing International Development work, lived in Bangladesh, lived in Thailand for a number of years. And then after graduate school, I joined Levi Strauss and company. That was about the time when there were a lot of concerns around working conditions in factories

in Asia, in the apparel sector. And they got involved in labor standards in the factories. And then after a few years, the company asked me to take on environmental work and it was back to what I had experienced when I was younger and I had a passion for it and got very involved in some of the environmental programs at Levi's. And it's really about making the world a better place. We have big challenges around the environment and climate and we

need to do something. This generation needs to do something. Yeah, I took a look at your open letter that you sent out to your staff that year that you joined Starbucks, you set firm goals to cut the company's carbon, water and waste footprints in half by 2030. I mean, these are ambitious initiatives. So Michael, what gave you the

confidence to set this sustainability vision for the company? Well, I will say when I joined Starbucks, the then CEO made these announcements saying it's very important for us as a company to be resource positive to give back more than we take from the planet's resources. And that's really our animating vision for the work that we're doing. And then we said, look, it's great to have a vision. We

also need to have targets. And so that's when we set those carbon water and waste targets to reduce our footprint in each of those areas by 50% by 2030. And it's been three years since the announcement. How is the progress coming along? One of the things that we have been doing is really focusing on coffee, sustainable cups, reusable cups and our greener stores. So I'll start in reverse order by saying that we've now reached 3500 of our greener stores certified all around the world.

Our goal is 10,000 by 2025. So we're making very good progress towards that. In terms of our cups, we have literally done 21 market tests all around the world in different markets including markets in Asia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore. Looking at what are the best incentives to get more reusable cup usage, including testing with other companies. We've been doing existing cups, we've been doing light weighting and more cycle content in the hot cups that we're currently offering.

And in coffee, we have now gotten up to 70 million coffee trees that we have donated to coffee farmers all around the world. Towards our goal of 100 million coffee trees. There are climate resistant coffee trees I should add. And we've also introduced 3500 wet mills that use up to 80% less water in our coffee producing countries around the world and achieving these goals in less than what 10 years come with. I'm sure its share of challenges. What were some of the key risks you and

anticipate it? Well, I think one of the biggest things that we needed to do with the company is change people's mindset. Like most companies, we tend to think in three year, four year terms, that's generally company's strategic planning horizon.

As I think you're well aware and to get our leaders, our partners, our employees to think in a 10 year vision of what might be possible is really one of the biggest opportunities that we had and so spent the first couple of years talking to people showing them the data, showing them what others were doing and really trying to inspire people that these visions are achievable and we must achieve them in order for us to do our part to address these big issues like

the climate crisis that the world is facing. What was the initial reaction within the company then? And has it changed much? Now, Starbucks has always been throughout our 51 year history, we've always had a focus on sustainability and in the early days, it was a focus on sustainable coffee because obviously that is our core product. And so we developed something called our coffee and farmer Equity program to make sure that the coffee that we were serving was sustainable.

And we worked with a big environmental organization, Conservation International to set up this program to support not only farmers income and social conditions of the communities where we're sourcing coffee, but also the environmental standards of how they were growing the coffee in more sustainable ways and also the quality of the coffee. So we've been working with farmers, literally, it's 400,000 smallholder farmers

all around the world. Many countries in Asia like Indonesia, China, Vietnam to support them and really train them. We've set up what we call farmer support centers, 10 of them all around the world to support farmers figure out how to grow coffee more sustainably for those of us who are not familiar with coffee production itself? What are the major contributors to carbon emissions? And how is Starbucks working towards decarbonizing a cup of coffee?

So when we work with farmers, we support the farmers by not only teaching them more sustainable agricultural techniques like what is known as regenerative agriculture. So to plow your fields less to use more composting natural fertilizers. But the other thing that I'm not sure most people realize that when they're drinking their morning cup of coffee because of the climate crisis, the land area that is available to grow coffee all around the world will be reduced 50% by 2050.

So coffee grows in the tropics in a narrow band up on the mountain, it requires those conditions and because of climate change, because of the temperature of the earth going up, the area available to grow coffee will decline by half. And so one of the things that we are doing in our farmer support centers and in our coffee farm that we actually own in Costa Rica is we're developing new varieties of coffee that

are resistant to the impacts of climate change. It usually takes four years for a coffee plant to mature and bear fruit. These plants, these trees that we're developing can mature in about half the time. So not only are we developing these more, what you could call climate resistant coffee trees for our farmers, we are actually giving them to the farmers. Our commitment is to donate 100 million of these more sustainable coffee trees

to farmers all around the world. And as of this year, we've hit 70 million more climate resistant trees that we're actually providing to coffee. Farmers.

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that's becoming our default. We used to it a long time. But now we're coming back to it to be more sustainable. The second option is we were encouraging customers throughout Asia to bring their own what we call personal cup. So here's mine. I take this everywhere I go, it's one they got in Pike Place Market, which was our first Starbucks store for Pike Place Market in Seattle. So I take this and we will fill this so that eliminates the use of the disposable cup.

And the last option is what we're calling our borrow a cup system. So if a customer comes in to a cafe and that they're gonna take their coffee away or take it to go, then we've developed this test reusable cup that they can take their beverage away and then we have return kiosk in our stores where they can come scan it, then return it and then we'll wash, sterilize it and use it again. And so throughout Asia, we are doing

pilots in a number of countries, about 600 stores. We're also testing these programs in Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong. Really trying to figure out how do we support our customers to be more?

Has it gained traction? It is gaining traction. You know, one of the things we're seeing is customers love the reusable cup, the borrow a cup and they are collecting them and then returning them to the kiosk like they'll collect them all over the week and then Monday morning they'll come in and they're scanning the cup and putting it back in. We're seeing that the customers as well as our store partners, the baristas, they like it because we're making a difference.

That's great to know. But I also wonder, do these initiatives come with an added cost for Starbucks? I mean, we've been testing all types of different incentives to get our customers to bring their reusable cups or testing all kinds of incentives to bring back, return the borrow a cup. So right now, we're experimenting with what is the best incentive to get customers because we're trying to change people's behavior. It isn't always easy to do that. So we're testing a lot

of different things. In fact, over the past 18 months, we have conducted 21 tests in markets all around the world. And what we're seeing is, of course, every market is different. And so we have to have a different combination of incentives or disincentives or other programs. And I also understand that beyond the cups, Starbucks is building more green stores worldwide. Could you describe how these differ from others and what

impact are they expected to have? Our greener stores is a terrific concept and a program that we started roughly about 10 years ago. We were one of the world's largest region tailor of what we call lead. Certified stores, stands for leadership and environmental design and these are stores that are certified to be built more sustainably. We also want to make sure we operate it more sustainably and use less

water and do recycling in the store. And so we came up, we developed this greener stores program with World Wildlife Fund and we have now globally certified 3500 of our stores to be greener stores. We have just begun the program this year in a number of markets in Asia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Philippines. Our target is 10,000 of our stores worldwide by 2025. And ultimately, the vision here just like with the cups is to go all in on sustainability so that every

new store we build is built to our greener store specifications. Ok, Michael Starbucks has met obviously some goals in the past but also has a history of or even scrapping its sustainability goals. What are you doing to ensure that all those goals are met by 2030? Well, one of the things that we do every year is we report on our progress, year to year. So that's one thing that's happening that we are doing and we've been very transparent about that and the progress that we're making.

And the other thing that we are doing is I would encourage you to look at our report and look at the progress that we are making because I am very confident that with the partners that we have now and the leadership that we have now and the focus that the world has on sustainability, we are going to meet these commitments for those who remain skeptical about the possibility of coffee sustainability in an industry that largely reliant on plastic cups and a paper

filters and deforestation. What would you say to them? Well, I would say number one, our vision long term is to go to reusable cups. Ok. That's our long term vision. And again, we're testing all different ways to get there in the near term. What we're doing is taking our existing cups and making them more sustainable. So this past year, we are converting all of our paper cups. Our existing paper cups are now 30% post consumer recycled content and their forest stewardship council certified as

not coming from old growth forests. So more sustainable timber and we're lightweight them, which means we're using fewer materials to make the cup. So we're consuming fewer trees in the end. So we're taking steps right now to make the existing cup more sustainable as the CSO one of the world's largest companies. Do you ever feel pressured to lead a sustainable lifestyle yourself? Absolutely. And one has to walk the talk. Of course,

in our home, we've done all our insulation. So we use less energy and just personally, lifestyle wise, I have taken to public transportation using my vehicle a lot less. And in my eating habits, I have pretty much cut out meat. I try to choose more plant based alternatives and what I'm putting in my body. So just a few things there to try and be more sustainable. Ok, Michael, thank you very much for joining me in discussing sustainability both on a corporate and personal level.

And we look forward to seeing the positive impact your leadership will have not only within Starbucks but also in the broader sustainability movement. Thank you again for your time, Julia. Thank you. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. Well, thanks to my guests and thanks to everyone for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode and do

remember to like and subscribe to this podcast. So, you know, when the new episode drops, leave us a message on Spotify or Apple podcast to let us know what you think the team behind this podcast is Cy and Nguyen, Jacqueline Chen, Joanne Chen Tiffany Yang, Cristina Robert and Nam Julie Yu signing off.