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Sustainability has been at our core since the beginning, back when Starbucks began in 1971.&nbsp;Over the years,&nbsp;with the help of our partners, customers, industry experts and advocates, we’ve looked for ways to help protect our planet, including introducing a cup sleeve made from recycled content, ethically sourcing 99% of our coffee, co-developing the LEED for Retail program, investments in renewable energy, championing the creation of a recyclable and compostable paper to-go cup and more. We recently announced a new sustainability commitment to be resource positive, including preliminary goals of reducing carbon, water and waste 50 percent by 2030.

To learn more, read on for an&nbsp;at-a-glance look at Starbucks sustainability milestones:

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Opens its first store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, selling whole bean coffee, tea and spices.

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Begins its first test of a coffeehouse concept, serving to-go beverages in paper cups.

Unveils Starbucks Mission Statement: “To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow.” 

Establishes environmental mission statement, committing to “a role of environmental leadership in all facets of our business.” 

Rolls out <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/starbucks-coffee-grounds-for-the-garden/">Grounds for Your Garden</a> program in U.S. and Canada.

Establishes a relationship with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund to explore ways to reduce the environmental impact of its cups.

 Introduces soymilk, Starbucks first non-dairy milk alternative. 

Develops a cup sleeve made from recycled content to help eliminate the practice of double-cupping.

Establishes The Starbucks Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen communities around the world by creating opportunities for populations that face barriers, advancing sustainability initiatives and promoting civic engagement. 

Forms partnership with Conservation International&nbsp;to create Starbucks first ethical sourcing program.

Issues its first <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/global-report">Corporate Social Responsibility Report</a>.

Introduces ethical coffee-sourcing guidelines developed in partnership with Conservation International.

Partners with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to develop the LEED for Retail program.

Launches C.A.F.E. (Coffee and Farmer Equity) Practices with Conservation International, with SCS Global Services overseeing the verification system of suppliers. 

Opens first Farmer Support Center opens in Costa Rica. Since then, eight other centers have opened around the world to support coffee farmers with climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Publicly reports its first inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.

Makes its first renewable energy purchase, equivalent to 5 percent of U.S. stores' electricity consumption. 

Designs and builds its first LEED certified store in Hillsboro, Ore.

Quadruples renewable energy purchases to equal 20 percent and begins buying renewable energy certificates (RECs) in partnership with World Resources Institute’s Green Power Market Development Group. Designated as one of the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-02/documents/2006awards.pdf">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partner of the Year</a>.

Launches the retail industry’s first hot beverage paper cup with 10 percent post-consumer recycled fiber (PCF).

Announces 2015 “Shared Planet” commitments, including goals to ethically source 100 percent of its coffee, build LEED-certified company-operated stores and cover 100 percent of U.S. store operations with renewable energy. Implements global LED lighting conversion program.

Commits $20 million to a variety of farmer loan funds, providing coffee farmers access to capital to cover expenses during the growing and harvesting cycles and make strategic investments in their farms. 

Partners with Conservation International to launch climate change campaign and five-year global commitment to support farming communities and encourage the protection of their land, water and forests.

Introduces a new polypropylene plastic cup that uses 15 percent less plastic than previous cups and emits 45 percent less greenhouse gas during production.

Hosts first Cup Summit in Seattle, inviting local governments, cup manufacturers, recyclers and stakeholders to find a comprehensive recyclable cup solution.

Opens Farmer Support Center in Kigali, Rwanda.

Unveils new, locally relevant design strategy to reduce environmental impact and incorporate reused and recycled elements. Starbucks becomes one of the first retailers to join USGBC’s LEED Volume Certification pilot program.

<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2009/starbucks-opens-leed-certified-coffee-roasting-plant/">Opens LEED-certified roasting plant</a> in Sandy Run, S.C.

Hosts second Cup Summit in Boston and announces Paper Recovery Alliance with the Foodservice Packaging Institute.

Opens Farmer Support Center in Mbeya, Tanzania.

Rolls out <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/earthsleeve-global-rollout/">cup sleeves</a> made from less paper and more post-consumer content, saving nearly 100,000 trees each year.

Starbucks Mexico opens its <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/store-design/chalpultepec-reforma">first LEED® certified store</a> and achieves the Silver Certification level, making it the first LEED® Silver store in Latin America.

Committed to helping coffee growers and workers who represent Starbucks collective supply chain, Starbucks opens <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-farmer-support-centers/">its second Farmer Support Center</a> in Latin American and the Caribbean region in Manizales, Colombia.

Opens its first <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2013/innovative-new-drive-thrus/">store made from reclaimed end-of-life shipping containers</a>. Starbucks would go on to open more than 45 of these modular stores in the United States, and <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-opens-first-container-store-in-taiwan/">more around the world</a>.

Opens Farmer Support Centers in Manizales, Colombia and Yunnan, China.

Purchases Hacienda Alsacia, its first 240-hectare coffee farm in Costa Rica, to serve as a global agronomy Research and Development facility and working farm. 

Offers a $1 reusable cup in the U.S. and Canada, and a £1 cup in the United Kingdom to help reduce cup waste.

Starbucks Japan offers environmentally friendly napkins made from 70% post-consumer recycled milk-carton fiber and 30% FSC®-certified paper.

Opens 500th LEED®-certified store, more than any other retailer in the world.

<a href="https://news.starbucks.com/news/recycling-in-one-of-the-worlds-largest-coffee-roasting-plants">York Roasting Plant</a> achieves 100% zero waste certification.

Is a founding partner with Conservation International and other industry leaders to launch the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/making-coffee-the-worlds-first-sustainably-sourced-agriculture-product/">Sustainable Coffee Challenge</a>, an effort to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product.

Launches <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2016/one-bag-for-every-tree-10-million-trees-milestone/">One Tree for Every Bag</a> program, which provides more than 25 million rust-resistant coffee trees to farmers whose farms are affected by coffee rust. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Purchases enough renewable energy to power 100% of its company-operated stores in the U.S., Canada and UK. 

Reaches <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/starbucks-ethical-sourcing-program/">99% ethically-sourced</a> coffee milestone with Conservation International.

Achieves its 25 percent water reduction target through global water conservation measures.

Announces additional commitment of $30 million as part of its <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/starbucks-more-than-doubles-global-farmer-loan-commitment/">Global Farmer Fund</a> program, which supports coffee farmers in improving the infrastructure on their farms and replacing older coffee trees with new ones.

Introduces coconutmilk, a non-dairy milk alternative.

Completes global rollout of <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/earthsleeve-global-rollout/">new cup sleeves</a>, which are made from less paper and more post-consumer fiber.

Introduces almondmilk, a non-dairy milk alternative. 

Issues its first Sustainability Bond in the United States.

Reaches milestone of <a href="https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-opens-1000th-leed-certified-store">1,000 LEED-certified store</a>s in 20 countries, including the historic Starbucks Roastery in Seattle.

Opens its third Farmers Support Center in Latin America, in Chiapas, Mexico, to offer technical support to coffee producers. 

Partners with Feeding America to launch its <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2016/starbucks-food-donation-program/">FoodShare food donation program</a> with a goal to rescue 100 percent of food available to donate from U.S. stores by the end of 2020. &nbsp;

Launches <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/starbucks-partners-for-sustainability/">Greener Apron program</a> for partners to become certified in environmental sustainability.

Announces commitment to provide <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2017/starbucks-100million-coffee-trees/">100 million climate-resilient coffee trees</a> to farmers by 2025.

Issues its second Sustainability Bond, this time in Japan.

<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2017/starbucks-uk-to-tackle-food-waste-with-charity-partner-action-against-hunge/">Expands food waste initiatives across EMEA</a>.

Eliminates straws in all Starbucks stores in Korea through strawless lids and paper straw alternatives.

Achieves 98% recycling of coffee grounds in Korea.

<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2018/starbucks-rolls-out-5p-paper-cup-charge-to-all-stores-across-britain/">Rolls out 5p Paper Cup Charge</a> in Starbucks stores in the UK and Germany

Achieves 100 percent zero waste certification at the Starbucks roasting plant in Carson Valley, Nev.

Opens Hacienda Alsacia Visitor Center to welcome visitors from around the world to experience Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm, a <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/starbucks-farm-research-and-innovation/">hub for coffee research and innovation</a>.

Invests in <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/solar-and-wind-power-fuel-starbucks-store/">North Carolina solar farm</a> to power 600 Starbucks stores in North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., as well solar farms in <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2019/starbucks-and-cypress-creek-solar-farms-team-up-to-power-360-stores-in-texas/">Texas</a>, providing enough energy for the equivalent of 360 Starbucks stores across the state.

Starbucks Sustainability Timeline - Starbucks Stories EMEA

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Starbucks Stories EMEA

A historical look at Starbucks sustainability efforts since the company began in 1971.

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2020/starbucks-sustainability-timeline/

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Starbucks Sustainability Timeline

The journey a coffee bean follows from farm to cup is an arduous one. It usually begins high in the hills of the Coffee Belt, a band that wraps around the Earth’s middle between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Bucket by bucket, the beans are hand-picked and processed before trundling down winding roads to cargo ships destined for roasting plants and cafés around the world. 

To get the best beans, buyers from Starbucks have traveled to the source since the first store opened back in 1971. They journeyed to far-flung farms in places in Latin America, Asia and East Africa, taking time to get to know farmers and their communities along the way.&nbsp;&nbsp; 

When Starbucks launched its C.A.F.E. Practices sustainable sourcing program in 2004, the company knew that building on these personal relationships would be critical to the program’s success. It opened its first <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-farmer-support-centers/">Farmer Support Center</a> that same year in San José, Costa Rica, and hired a team of agronomists to bring farmers into the program.

Carlos Mario Rodriguez, director and global head of coffee research and development for Starbucks, was part of that first Farmer Support Center agronomy team. He drove his pickup truck over countless miles of narrow roads to visit farmers and help them with a range of sustainability issues and ensure a long-term supply of quality coffee. He helped them set up their own test plots, showed them how to space trees correctly and offered suggestions to manage erosion and reduce the use of pesticides.&nbsp; 

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William Chacon, owner of the Café Las Peñas farm in Sabanilla, Costa Rica, has been working with Starbucks agronomists for more than 10 years, even when his farm is not selling to Starbucks. 

“There are many problems related to deforestation, and the coffee gets damaged by disease, and so the quality suffers too,” said Chacon. “With Starbucks help, we are producing new varieties of coffee. The quality is good because the leaves and the plants grow healthy.” 

In that first year the Farmer Support Center, 43.5 million pounds of green (unroasted) coffee were purchased from C.A.F.E. Practices-approved suppliers, representing 14.5 percent of total coffee purchases. Each year, purchases under the program continued to grow and Starbucks expanded its network of farmer support. A satellite location in Guatemala City opened in 2006, followed by Rwanda in 2009, Tanzania in 2011 and Colombia in 2012. Field by field, farm by farm – this new approach to sustainable sourcing was taking root.

In 2012, Starbucks opened its sixth Farmer Support Center, and first in Asia, in Yunnan, China’s Pu’er region. Alan Tong was the first agronomist at the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2017/yunnan-single-origin-coffee/">China Farmer Support Center</a>, starting with just 25 coffee growers.

Since then, he and his team have trained nearly 10,000 farmers in China in sustainable farming practices and 1,200 farms are now verified through C.A.F.E. Practices. They are also putting resources toward <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-deepens-its-commitment-in-yunnan-communities/">creating pathways out of poverty in coffee farming communities</a> across the region.

After opening two more Farmer Support Centers in Ethiopia (2014) and Indonesia (2015), Starbucks’ oldest Farmer Support Center also became its newest. In 2016 the San José agronomy center moved from its downtown office building to a farm 15 miles up a mountain road to the foot of the Poàs Volcano. The 600-acre working farm and visitor’s center at <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/coffee-sustainability/">Hacienda Alsacia</a> serves as Starbucks global agronomy research and development center.

“I can show [farmers] how we have been doing things,” said Victor Trejos, general manager of Hacienda Alsacia. “How we have been planting, how we fertilize, soil tests … and how they can do the same.” 

The farm includes 14 hectares dedicated to research. It’s a testing ground to push the boundaries of agronomy research to breed trees that are resistant to coffee leaf rust, or roya, which is ravaging coffee crops in Latin America. The team also analyzes soil, fine tunes pruning techniques, and supports farmers in other ways to increase coffee trees’ quality and productivity. Its findings aren’t kept in a company vault; they are shared freely with researchers and farmers everywhere.

To date, Starbucks has trained more than 52,000 farmers with free access to education and resources through its Farmer Support Centers, with a goal of reaching 200,000 farmers by 2020.&nbsp;Its aspiration is to&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/making-coffee-the-worlds-first-sustainably-sourced-agriculture-product/">make coffee the world’s first sustainably sourced agricultural product</a>.

But for Rodriguez, the accomplishment is best measured one farm, one farmer at a time.

“To me, as a professional, as a partner, it’s the best part really when you start working with a particular farmer and see that they are improving their living conditions and being able to keep producing coffee as a good business,” he said. “That’s the best. It’s really something that motivates us.” 

Centred on Sustainability - Starbucks Stories EMEA

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How Starbucks provide farmers across the globe free access to education and resources.

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2019/ensuring-access-to-agronomy-education-and-resources/

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Starbucks Sustainability Timeline

Centred on Sustainability