Theme: Corporate Social Responsibility in Starbucks
Words count: 1062
The term Corporate Social Responsibility is a business model of responsibility that gives assistance to a certain
company, in order to make it socially liable. The center of attention will be towards both the social and the
ecological environment, together with the community. This is also expressed as "citizenship'' from the
companies. The clarification for that is their operations for pollution and waste reduction while providing
educational and social programs, and by obtaining satisfactory returns from the hired resources. In addition,
Starbucks company has been taken as an example. As a matter of fact, their comprehensive approach is to
reduce the environmental impact. Moreover, they are mostly paying attention to the aspects of their business
and how they can combine varying solutions to bring into existence a significant and sustained change. Despite
the claims that Starbucks is dedicated to protecting the environment and encourage economic stability, the
company does not meet its own purported standards. Indeed, the company has been always setting ambiguous
goals, but most of them have been just partly fulfilled. Nevertheless, the following paragraphs will give a
further explanation of the current situation in which Starbucks is involved.
Until now, Starbucks has believed that they are fully aware of their huge environmental impact. Therefore, the
cups have been replaced with recyclable ones. Moreover, the company alleged that during the time passing,
substantial progress for waste saving has been achieved. To illustrate, they have replaced the usage of double
cups with corrugated hot beverage sleeves, composed of 60% recycled fibrе (Fabcherrry, 2018). Together with ). Together with
that, the company avers that they have been working quite hard to reach and maintain their present
sustainable level. However, according to Martinko (2017), It turned out that the cups are not entirely made of
recyclable material. Hence, their set goal for a better life was not truly achieved. The verification for that is the
fact that Starbucks admits that the cups that were created are lined with a polyethylene plastic coating. Hence,
when the paper cups are tried to be recycled without separating out the material itself from the cup, in most of
the cases the machines are getting stuck with the plastic lining. Even the fact, that the company is trying to
reduce the negative point to some extent, it is still not successful. The main reason is customer satisfaction.
They receive a 10 per cent discount when they bring their own reusable cup. Besides the fact, there are still
countries with regions that are not entirely aware of this policy. Therefore, not every client can take advantage
of the campaign of Starbucks for a better and sustainable life in the world.
On the contrary, other people fully support the standpoint that the company has already started working on
different alternatives that could save the environment as much as possible. Furthermore, Starbucks has
declared that it will replace the plastic straws with a design of a strawless lid, which will be much easier to be
recycled (Warnick, 2019). These strawless lids will be built of a sippable protrusion or replaced by alternative-
material straw options. The change is expected to eliminate more than 28). Together with .000 operated and licensed stores. By
2020 the company is planning to put into action their plan and to globally spread around their progressive
thinking in dealing with the material waste struggle completely. In contrast, even though Starbucks decides to
implement this great method, the percentage of plastic pollution on the Earths ’environment will,
unfortunately, stay high. Based on Mahdawi (2018). Together with ), the Reason Foundation has declared that this innovative
idea for replacing the straws with a strawless lid might lead to even higher use of plastic than usual. The
explanation behind is the thicker nitro lids that are combined with an additional tiny layer of plastic. Thus,
in the upcoming future, Starbucks would probably not contribute beneficially for the better world until they do
not figure out the best solution for the existing issue with the straws.
Whereas the company has always been striving for greater environmental performance in the stores, they have
already chosen to focus on another convenient opportunity, like conserving energy. According to the Starbucks
Coffee Company (2019), It has engaged with the creation of "Starbucks Greener Stores" which will be powered
by a 100 per cent renewable energy, with the support of others solar and wind projects. Apart from the setback
that the company has experienced, their driven step is to invest in renewable energy. These days Starbucks was
also seen as a world's lead buyer of renewable electricity in the total coffee sector. Their aim is to purchase
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), which will supply renewable companies with extra revenue. In the same
way, they can market at competitive prices with oil companies. Nonetheless, all the effort the company has
dedicated so far, it was found that in the last years Starbucks has increased its greenhouse emissions. As
reported by Allison (2008). Together with ), the main cause for that is the electricity usage of 8). Together with 0 per cents in the stores and the