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Coffee Cup Woes: Starbucks’ Environmental Sustainability Challenge
About Starbucks
As of 2013, Starbucks was the world’s largest coffee house chain. It served hot and cold beverages, whole-bean coffee, microground instant coffee, full-leaf teas, pastries, snacks, packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, and items such as mugs and tumblers. More than the offerings, the company focused on selling a ‘third place’ experience, and the stores became places for relaxing, chatting with friends, reading the newspaper, holding business meetings, or browsing the Web. The ‘experience’ brought spectacular success for the store. Starbucks was considered an iconic brand and most of its customers were passionate about it. Of the customers, 8% were repeat customers. |
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For the year ended September 30, 2012, the company had earned revenue of US$ 13.29 billion and net income of US$ 1.38 billion (See Exhibit I for Starbucks’ financial data). As of 2013, Starbucks operated in 62 countries, employing around 200,000 people worldwide whom it called partners. Its operations were organized in three geographic regions: the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and China and Asia Pacific (CAP). The company had company-operated and licensed stores in these regions........
