Reducing our energy use.
Energy use makes up roughly 80 percent of our entire carbon footprint. That makes it our single biggest impact on the climate – and our single biggest opportunity to make significant improvements. Conserving energy and increasing efficiency are two important measures we can take to reduce our contribution to climate change.
What we've been doing.
- We learned more about how we use energy.
We completed a comprehensive energy audit – monitoring all aspects of energy usage around the clock among a representative sample of 19 Starbucks stores in the U.S. over a six-month period. As a result of what we learned, we’re investing in new lighting and improving the efficiency of HVAC (heating, ventilation and cooling) systems and other equipment. - We purchased renewable energy.
During fiscal 2008, we continued to purchase renewable energy in the amount that represents 20 percent of the total electricity used in our company-operated stores in the U.S. and Canada. We worked with 3Degrees to buy wind renewable energy certificates for more than 211 million kilowatt hours, equivalent to the electricity used by more than 18,000 U.S. homes. - We supported green power.
Starbucks is a member of the World Resources Institute Green Power Market Development Group and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Green Power Partnership. This voluntary program supports the organizational procurement of green power by offering expert advice, technical support, tools and resources. - We advocated for climate and energy legislation.
Starbucks is a charter member of BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy). Working with other leading U.S. businesses, we hope to help spur the clean energy economy and reduce global warming pollution.
Hurdles.
In spite of our efforts to conserve energy, our store energy use increased in fiscal 2008 as we added energy-consuming equipment to accommodate new products. We are optimistic, however, that we’ll see significant improvements in this trend starting next year as a result of several opportunities we identified in our recent energy audit.
What we’re working on.
We are working to improve our environmental footprint through minimizing our energy use and utilizing renewable sources of energy.
Our goals include:
- Fifty percent of the energy used in our company-owned stores will come from renewable sources by 2010
- Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by making our company-owned stores 25 percent more energy efficient by 2010
