A Starbucks store is certified as a “Greener Store” when it successfully meets 25 required standards, as verified by an outside auditor, across eight environmental impact areas such as energy efficiency, water stewardship and waste diversion. The standards were developed in partnership with the <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">World Wildlife Fund</a> and SCS Global Services.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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“The Greener Stores journey is truly a Starbucks-wide effort, from our store designers and construction teams to software developers who ensure we can collect sustainability data on a global scale to our store partners (employees) who encourage customers to use reusable cups or Grounds for Your Garden,” says Grace Yoo, Starbucks Greener Stores global program manager.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“Most of them look no different from any other Starbucks store,” Yoo says, “but there are Greener Stores quietly opening and operating all throughout the world, with unglamorous details like energy-efficient dishwashers, water-saving faucets, and carefully thought-out waste diversion signage to help do our part in mitigating the effects of climate change.”&nbsp;

As of April 2023, Starbucks has certified more than 3,500 Greener Stores in the U.S. and Canada. This month, 88 Greener Stores were certified in 18 additional markets around the world, such as Argentina, Vietnam and the United Kingdom. Starbucks goal is to certify 10,000 Greener Stores around the world by 2025. &nbsp;

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What makes a Greener Store?&nbsp;&nbsp;

Water Stewardship&nbsp;&nbsp;

At the 2023 Greener Store of the Year in Los Angeles, Starbucks is piloting a water-reclamation project that takes the residual moisture from the store’s ice machine and water-filtration system – that would normally flow into the sewer – and diverts it instead into four 55-gallon storage tanks. Every time the store’s toilet flushes, it uses water from those tanks.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The store has reclaimed about 2,500 gallons of water from January through March 2023, and is using about 27 gallons per day, on average, of reclaimed water to flush the toilets.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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“Out West, in an area where water usage and water rights dominate the headlines, we’re stepping up and trying to help with the problem,” says Matt Robitaille, Starbucks construction program manager who helped design, build and install the system.&nbsp;

Partner Engagement&nbsp;&nbsp;

For more than a year, Becca Rollins, store manager in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has used a reusable cup every day at her store. She knits reusable-cup cozies for her store partners and regular customers, and encourages a back-of-house competition for each partner to track their reusable cup use. Last fall, she even presented a letter to regular customers Russ and Sally, a retired couple who bring their own cups and silverware every time they visit, for being sustainable customers. She estimates they’ve saved 1,500 single-use items from the landfill. She’s also an advocate in her district for the&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.ca/en-ca/stories/2021/starbucks-grounds-for-your-garden-rooted-in-a-mission-to-help-local-communities-grow/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Grounds For Your Garden</a> program.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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“About a year ago, I started taking some things a little more seriously as far as imprint and making planet-positive decisions,” Rollins says. “It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in this world by everything that goes on. Just focus on the most good that you can do. It matters.”&nbsp;

Greener Store practices have helped Starbucks save almost $60 million in annual operating costs in the U.S., including 30 percent water savings and 25 percent energy reduction when compared to historic store practices. These include efforts such as retrofitting store lighting to LEDs; installing more energy-efficient appliances like Advansys dishwashers and ENERGY STAR certified batch-type ice makers; and standardizing energy-use schedules and heating/cooling temperatures.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Despite challenges to implementation, such as differing rules and availability in each city and town, Starbucks recycles in more than 8,000 company-operated stores across the U.S. More than 3,000 have both recycling and compost services. In Greener Stores, the goal is to align the different rules around waste in each municipality with the workflow and best practices inside each store. That means clear signage around what items go in what bin; the use of an internal Recycling App that sets clear expectations around what things are picked up and when; and locating waste receptables where they can be most efficient – for example, putting a compost bin next to the warming ovens to catch all the parchment paper used to heat up food.&nbsp;

Being smart and efficient about waste can help Starbucks direct less waste to landfills, says Pete Schultze, a district manager in the San Francisco Bay Area who has five Greener Stores in his portfolio. “Taking care of the environment and sustainability, it’s important to our partners,” he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Greener Stores feature a number of renewable energy projects such as <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/find-an-ev-charger-at-starbucks-stores-from-seattle-to-denver/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EV charging</a> and onsite solar that help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and improve local air quality.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Responsible Materials&nbsp;&nbsp;

Starbucks Greener Stores limit the use of volatile organic compounds, such as paints, coating, adhesives and sealants that can be harmful for the environment and degrade air quality. Other requirements mean mercury-free lighting installed in stores, which increases light quality and also helps eliminate harmful materials that could end up in landfills. &nbsp;

Starbucks is also starting work on an Embodied Carbon Initiative, which will measure, track and assess the lifetime carbon emissions necessary to build, transport and eventually dispose of all its equipment and building materials. The goal, says Jodie Clarke, senior project manager in Global Store Development, is to create new standards, influence more earth friendly practices throughout the supply chain and educate suppliers through a <a href="https://starbucksglobalacademy.com/greener-stores/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Starbucks Global Academy sustainability course</a>, that recently received positive recognition from the <a href="http://biden%20administration/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Biden administration</a>. &nbsp;

One of the newly-certified international Greener Stores – <a href="https://historias.starbucks.com/en-es/stories/2022/top-5-things-to-see-at-starbucks-new-store-in-antigua-guatemala/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in Antigua, Guatemala</a> – is located inside a preserved and restored UNESCO World Heritage site. The historic, courtyard-style building uses local art, local furniture and local materials.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“We refurbished what was already there. We didn’t pour new concrete. We didn’t buy new steel,” says Erica Saraff, senior project manager, Global Store Development-Sustainability. “It’s open-air, so no HVAC system, which is a huge source of electricity use. Using local supplies also means savings on transportation costs.” &nbsp;

“Everything that we’ve built into a Greener Store is a little step,” Saraff says. “When you’re talking about one dishwasher, or one recycling bin, or one light fixture, that’s small. But we have thousands of stores, and all those small things that you do - as a partner, as a customer - make an impact because of our scale. &nbsp;

“If we’re all doing something better, it becomes a much bigger better.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Starbucks is committed to certifying 10,000 Greener Stores around the world by 2025. Learn more about what makes a Greener Store.

What’s inside a Greener Store?

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Greener Stores allow Starbucks to test solutions for scale to help the company realize its Planet Positive goals to reduce carbon emissions, water usage and landfill waste by 50%.

The company will open its first Greener Store outside North America in Shanghai, China with a focus on circularity.

Over the next year, Starbucks to continue the international expansion of this program with Greener Stores opening in Japan, the UK and Chile.

As Starbucks celebrates its 50th Anniversary, the company is expanding its open-source Greener Store Framework to help reduce its environmental impact and leverage its scale for good to accelerate the global movement towards a more sustainable future.

Announced in 2018, the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-announces-global-greener-stores-commitment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Greener Store Framework</a>, co-developed with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is designed to accelerate the transformation of retail towards lower-impact stores that achieve reductions in carbon emissions, water usage and landfill waste. Starbucks has more than 2,300 Greener Stores in the U.S. and Canada and will begin using the framework outside of North America to achieve its goal of building and retrofitting 10,000 Greener Stores globally by 2025.

“Our work to become planet positive begins with coffee at origin, and carries through to our stores, right to our customers’ hands,” said Michael Kobori, Starbucks chief sustainability officer. “I’m proud to say that our partners’ energy and passion for sustainability pushes us every day and is the reason why we’ve seen great adoption of our Greener Store standards.”

With performance-based standards that incorporate design and extend throughout the life of a store, Starbucks Greener Stores in North America have reduced energy consumption by 30% compared with the company’s prior store designs. That equals the electricity use of more than 30,000 homes per year. Additionally, state-of-the-art technologies treat and conserve water, reducing annual water use by more than 30%, saving more than 1.3 billion gallons of water annually. Meanwhile, 90% of company operated stores have adopted waste diversion and circular practices, including recycling, composting, Grounds for Your Garden, and Starbucks FoodShare. 

“We’ve proven designing and building greener stores is not only responsible, but also good for business,” said Andy Adams, Starbucks senior vice president, Store Development. “In 2018, we created a new benchmark in retail that goes beyond construction and design to address long-term, eco-conscious operations. Today, we expand the Greener Stores benchmark globally to accelerate our progress toward our Planet Positive goals.”

Now, Starbucks is opening its first Greener Store outside of North America in Shanghai,China with a focus on circularity. The Shanghai Greener Store has been designed and built to reduce waste, repurpose goods and serve as a platform for future innovation.

Starbucks will open two additional experiential Greener Stores, like in Shanghai, designed to immerse customers in Starbucks Planet Positive commitments -- the next is planned for Southern California and Starbucks hometown in Seattle, Wash. Looking to the future, Starbucks will extend its commitment beyond company operated stores to licensees, joint venture partners and licensees to innovate and expand sustainability programming to deliver more robust energy, carbon, water, and waste reductions.

Scaling around the globe

Over the next year, Starbucks will continue the international expansion of this program with Greener Stores opening in Japan, the UK and Chile.

Starbucks is also expanding test and learn capabilities for sustainability with innovation test stores that are part of the ecosystem at the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2021/starbucks-announces-new-planet-and-people-positive-research-facility-in-partnership-with-arizona-state-university/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet</a>. The ASU-Starbucks Center, slated to open in December, will include work to inspire others to design, build and operate portfolios of buildings that minimize environmental impacts throughout their life cycle. This includes developing a roadmap for Greener Store education efforts, including a toolkit, and learning library, to be open-sourced and available for Starbucks stakeholders and others via <a href="https://www.starbucksglobalacademy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Starbucks Global Academy</a>.

“Starbucks expansion of the Greener Stores program demonstrates a continued commitment to environmental stewardship and innovation,” said Sheila Bonini Senior Vice President, Private Sector Engagement, World Wildlife Fund. “By making this program open source, and expanding it globally, Starbucks is creating a path toward a resource positive future within their own four walls and beyond.”

Greening the supply chain

Starbucks commitment to environmentally responsible design, construction and operation extends beyond retail and into its supply chain as well.

As a progression against Starbucks resource-positive goals, the company recently committed to <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2021/starbucks-announces-coffee-specific-environmental-goals/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Carbon Neutral Green Coffee</a> and to conserve water usage in green coffee processing by 50%, both by 2030. This work focuses on Origin – or what Starbucks refers to as “the first ten feet” (farm to port).

Key to our Greener Stores framework are efforts to accelerate the clean energy transition through onsite solar, and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-solidifies-pathway-to-a-planet-positive-future/#:~:text=Starbucks%20has%20sourced%20100%25%20renewable,stores%20that%20use%20the%20energy." target="_blank">new innovative renewable energy investments and contracts</a>. Earlier this summer, Starbucks completed the installation of a 1-megawatt solar array at the Starbucks Carson Valley Roasting Plant and Distribution Center, one of the largest in the world suppling Starbucks products domestically and internationally. On-site solar energy will provide nearly a third of the Roasting Plant and Distribution Center’s electricity for the year.

“At the Carson Valley Roasting Plant, we see the cycle come full circle. Starbucks coffee is both grown by and roasted from the sun,” said Kobori.

Across Starbucks roasting plants, as current roasters reach end of life, the company is replacing them with new roasters that are 40% more energy efficient.

The Carson Valley Roasting plant also leverages electric vehicles to help with daily operations, and in the year ahead, Starbucks will scale electric vehicle fleets throughout its supply chain.

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Greener Stores allow Starbucks to test solutions for scale to help the company realize its Planet Positive goals to reduce carbon emissions, water usage and landfill waste by 50%.

Starbucks Greener Stores accelerate global movement towards a more sustainable future

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Learn how Starbucks is working to ensure a better future for people and the planet from ethical sourcing to stores powered by the sun.

We are working to make coffee the world's first sustainable agricultural product.

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We invest in clean, green energy to power our stores, reduce our environmental impact and support access to green power.

We are committed to design, build and operate the world's largest green retail business.

We are working to reduce waste promoting reusability and making packaging sustainable.

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Sustainability commitments at a glance - Starbucks Stories

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At a glance: Starbucks sustainability commitments go from farm to straws﻿.

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From ethical sourcing to stores powered by the sun

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Sustainability commitments at a glance

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