The ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet will focus on initiatives aimed to deliver scalable impact towards Starbucks aspirational 2030 goals and beyond.

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Nine licensed Starbucks stores on campus will test and evaluate customer response to center innovations.

Building on a long-standing partnership, Starbucks and Arizona State University are joining forces to create the <a href="http://www.asu-starbuckscenter.com">ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet</a> – a new research and rapid innovation facility created to find new ways to design, build and operate Starbucks stores.

“Over the last several years we have been reinventing Starbucks for our future and transforming the way we drive innovation at Starbucks,” said Kevin Johnson, Starbucks ceo. “As we continuously focus on elevating the Starbucks Experience, introducing new and exciting beverage innovation, and reimagining customer experiences both in-store and through more personalized digital relationships, we constantly challenge ourselves to find new ways to give back more than we take, using our power at scale to create a better society in which we all live.”

Scheduled to open in December 2021 on ASU’s Tempe campus, the ASU-Starbucks Center will be built on the same principle as the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/inside-the-tryer-center-the-starbucks-lab-where-anything-is-possible/">Starbucks Tryer Center</a> – bringing ideas to action – supported by ASU’s applied research and on-campus test store ecosystem. The Tryer Center, located on the bottom floor of the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle, is an incubation lab where partners (employees) can quickly test, learn, and adapt ideas for more rapid decision making. This space represents a mindset of innovation embraced across the organization, which will further propagate at the ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet.&nbsp;

“ASU and Starbucks are aligned in our missions to be of complete service to the communities we serve and build a better future for both people and the planet,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “Through this new center, ASU will provide unique value in terms of research and transdisciplinary expertise in order to collaborate with Starbucks to develop, test and validate strategies that can ultimately be scaled to stores and communities globally.”

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Composed of a dedicated team of scientists, researchers, and support staff, including subject-matter experts from Starbucks and ASU, the center’s objective is to positively impact the future of our planet.

ASU is a leader in transdisciplinary research on pathways towards a future that allows life to thrive on a healthy planet. The recently launched Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory is the focal point of these efforts and the home of the new center. Initially, more than 15 faculty and staff from across the university will support the ASU-Starbucks Center activities. As the center expands, its scope and capacity will increase leveraging ASU's broad expertise and strength in innovation.

This project builds on a shared belief by Starbucks and ASU that the two entities have the power and the responsibility to forge a better future for both people and the planet. In the first year, the work will focus on:

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The Starbucks-ASU partnership is founded on a shared belief to uplift the communities we serve.

The relationship began in 2014, when Starbucks and ASU came together to develop the <a href="https://starbucks.asu.edu/">Starbucks College Achievement Plan</a> (SCAP), which creates an opportunity for benefits-eligible Starbucks U.S. partners to earn their first-time bachelor’s degree through ASU’s top-ranked online degree program. More than 18,000 partners are participating in SCAP, and nearly 6,000 have graduated since the plan began.

Since then, Starbucks and ASU have launched additional initiatives including <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2017/starbucks-asu-pathway-to-college-admission/">Pathway to Admission</a>, <a href="https://www.starbucksglobalacademy.com/#/default">Starbucks Global Academy</a>, and a Sustainability Fellowship Program, which provides opportunities for ASU sustainability majors through SCAP to complete their required internship capstone experience in Seattle at Starbucks headquarters. In the last four years, the SCAP Sustainability Fellowship has hosted 13 partners (employees) from the SCAP program with the next program offering being planned for fall 2021.

The ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet will focus on initiatives aimed to deliver scalable impact towards Starbucks aspirational 2030 goals and beyond.

Starbucks announces new planet and people positive research facility in partnership with ASU

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