Starbucks Saves The Environment and Its Bottom Line

Starbucks Coffee has announced that starting in 2010 it will seek LEED certification for all of its new company-owned stores.   The company has set aggressive goals for those stores, including deriving 50% of their energy from alternative sources and reducing overall store energy consumption by 25 percent.

The company, the world’s largest roaster of coffee, has already opened three stores this year that showcase the approaches they will take to meet those goals — two in Seattle and one in Paris.   All three stores are registered to be LEED-certified.

At the Paris store, which is located in the Walt Disney Resort there, fixtures are made with repurposed local materials such as wine barrels and champagne racks.   The store reduces its heating costs with a unique natural convection-exhaust system and a titanium-paneled exhaust tower.  Starbucks even gives its used coffee grounds to Disney for use as compost.

According to Starbucks’ 2007 Corporate Responsibility Report, the typical Starbucks store uses:

• 6.80 kilowatt-hours of electricity per square foot per month (up from 6.78  in 2007
• 0.054 therms of natural gas per square foot per month (down from 0.058 in 2007)
• 24 gallons of water per square foot per month (down from 25 in 2007)

Let’s look at the math for just electricity.  If the average Starbucks store is around 1500 square feet, all 15,000 stores would total 22,500,000 square feet.  That would make annual electrical consumption in excess of 1.8 billion kilowatt hours.  At an average of 10 cents per kWh, Starbucks annual electric bill would exceed $180 million.  So, in addition to the obvious environmental benefits, Starbucks also gets a boost to their bottom line.

The company notes on its website that it will be replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents or LEDs, using local craftsmen and local materials, and will use low-VOC finishes and adhesives in new construction.  Restrooms will feature dual-flush toilets, low-flow faucets and air-dryers instead of paper towels.

Starbucks new Seattle stores feature elements such as wood reclaimed from abandoned bleachers and fallen trees and scrap leather from old auto and shoe manufacturers.

“Ultimately, we hope customers will feel an enhanced sense of community, a deeper connection to our coffee heritage and a greater level of commitment to environmental consciousness,” says Arthur Rubenfeld, President of Starbucks Global Development.

Under the banner of an initiative called Starbucks Shared Planet, the company also plans to make all Starbucks cups recyclable or reusable by 2015 and make recycling available to customers in stores where Starbucks controls waste collection.

The new stores would not be the company’s first LEED-certified buildings. The company’s headquarters in Seattle and one of its four U.S. roasting plants are also LEED-certified.

Rich Silverman                                                                                                           Goodway Blogging Team