- Americans drink 400 million cups of coffee per day,
and a big portion of those come in
single use plastic and paper cups.
As we learned on our last episode with Starbucks,
the coffee giant has publicly pledged
to make their production chain more sustainable.
So in this episode presented by Starbucks, I want to know.
How can the coffee company cut down
on the waste from their stores?
To find out, I'll connect with Starbucks
chief sustainability officer Michael Kobori,
on the plans to reduce the company's waste, carbon emissions
and water use in the next decade.
- By 2030, our goal is to reduce our carbon, water
and waste footprints each by half, by 50%.
- I'm Lucy Biggers and this is One Small Step.
(upbeat music)
American consumers are on the go
and used to the convenience of wasteful single use.
Still, Starbucks knows things have to change
and the company is committed
to cutting their landfill bound waste in half by 2030.
That's why I'm excited to learn
from their chief sustainability officer, and understand
how they plan to tackle this complicated issue.
- One of the things that we have been looking
at for some time now is coffee brewing.
And how do we make that much more efficient,
both in terms of the energy and the water that it uses.
- Michael Kobori joined Starbucks to help the company
reach its goal of being resource positive by 2030.
- There's two big challenges.
The first is that recycling and composting
in the United States is actually done at a municipal level.
It's not done nationwide.
So basically every city or town has a different set
of capabilities to recycle or reuse or compost the cup.
And one of the things that we've done is
we've supported a innovation fund that is working to
improve that waste infrastructure across the country.
- Starbucks is working on several ways
to make single use cups a thing of the past.
- The second big challenge that we face
is consumer behavior.
One of the missions is to eliminate the disposable cup.
There are three ways that we think
about how we could do that.
The first thing you can do is to use a 'For Here Ware'
as we call it, or the mug that we'll provide you.
The second thing you can do is bring in your own cup.
And the last thing that you can do is
we are developing a reuse a cup system.
We call it 'Borrow a Cup' where every time you come
to a Starbucks, you get your beverage in this reusable cup,
you pay a dollar deposit, and then when you're finished
you return it, you get your dollar deposit back.
So we're just testing this right now
but I'm very excited about the test
because these are the ways that we'll be able to
eliminate the disposable cup.
- Their Borrow a Cup system is currently being tested
in five stores in Seattle.
One Borrow a Cup can be reused 30 times.
So 3 reusable cups can save 100 paper cups,
and each Borrow a Cup can be recycled.
- Through this system,
we want to replace our single use cups with reusable cups
in a circular system that doesn't consume
any additional natural resources from the planet.
- Starbucks is leveraging technology
and even partnering with competitors to achieve this goal.
- We're sharing what we're learning with our competitors,
with universities, anyone else who might be interested,
so they can take what we've discovered,
what we've innovated and make it better.
- Now that we've covered the cups that hold your lattes
and teas, let's get into the food.
Starbucks offers a menu with plant-based options.
- We have introduced a number of alternative milks
to help reduce your water and carbon footprint.
We’ve introduced more plant based menu options, which customers want.
Also, it helps to reduce carbon and water impact.
- From the coffee farms to your morning mug,
a sustainable production chain is super important
for the future of coffee in places
like Guatemala and Mexico.
What are Starbucks commitments to cutting down
on water use and making sure that
that part of the store is more sustainable?
- When you pick the coffee cherry and then you process it,
that requires water processing.
Within our supply chain
we have identified water efficient equipment
for that processing, that can literally reduce the amount
of water used in coffee processing by 80%.
- For the Starbucks customer out there, what is one
small step that they can take to help reduce their waste?
- So the simple thing that any customer can do is
don't ask for extra things.
Don't ask for a straw.
Don't ask for a extra cup sleave if you don't need it.
And once we re-introduce the personal cup,
bring in your own cup to Starbucks,
when you want to get a cup of coffee.
- As we continue to hold coffee companies accountable
for their sustainability practices,
we the customers have to hold ourselves accountable as well.
That could be something as simple
as owning a reusable coffee mug
or composting with coffee grounds.
In a perfect world,
paper cups and plastic lids will disappear.
In Starbucks world,
they're hoping to be halfway there by 2030.
That's all for this episode.
Thank you so much for watching.
And, if you haven't already,
check out our episode on the future of coffee farming.
Bye! (upbeat music)