Abstract

Starbucks Coffee Company (Starbucks), the largest coffee chain in the world generated 4 billion single-serve cups as waste each year that ended up in landfills or as litter. The company had to work overtime to solve this problem as its customers and other stakeholders wanted it to do something about the problem. In 2008, Starbucks took up the target of serving 25% of the beverages in its company-operated stores in reusable cups by 2015. It also committed itself to making 100% of its paper cups in company-operated stores in North America recyclable by 2015. However, tackling the problem was anything but easy and straightforward. The company took various initiatives to curb the waste including offering a long-standing discount of 10 cents to any customer who brought along a reusable cup but with little success. In 2012, the company was forced to reduce the target of serving beverages in personal tumblers to 5% by 2015 as it was able to achieve less than 2%.Recycling also posed some serious problems as the existing ecosystem was not “designed to take the individual Starbucks cups” due to the presence of a plastic coating inside the cup. In 2013, Starbucks introduced a US$1 reusable cup in its stores in the US and Canada and later on, in the UK. The company had also hosted Cup Summits since 2009 to engage various stakeholders in solving the problem of recycling. The questions before Starbucks’ Director of environmental affairs, Jim Hanna (Hanna) were how to solve the problem of the Starbucks cup in a way that would be acceptable to all stakeholders.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand issues related to corporate sustainability and in being a globally and environmentally responsible company.
• Understand the importance and need for environmental sustainability for a company like Starbucks.
• Discuss and debate Starbucks’ approach toward environmental sustainability, particularly its initiatives to address the issue of waste generated by disposable coffee cups.
• Understand issues and challenges in convincing consumers to adopt reusable cups and problems in recycling paper cups.
• Explore ways in which Starbucks can address these issues effectively.

Keywords

Corporate sustainability, Environmental sustainability, Ecological challenges, Global environmental issues, Managing environmental issues, Stages of corporate environmental responsibility, Waste management, Recycling, Life-cycle analysis, Business-government-society relationship, Systems Approach, Stakeholder theory, Managing stakeholder tension