Jet-Setting Starbucks Boss Makes A Mockery Of The Company’s Green Claptrap – CoffeeTalk

Starbucks, has been accused of making expensive desserts rather than real coffee, with menu highlights such as the Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino. Critics argue that the chain’s commitment to saving the planet is weak, as evidenced by its extensive time and resources dedicated to shouting about its green credentials. The company’s most recent annual “global impact” report takes this supposed environmental dedication to absurd extremes, promising that when Starbucks is at its best, it will bridge to a better future for partners, uplift the everyday for customers, help ensure the future of coffee for all for farmers, contribute positively to each of its communities, and give more than we take from the environment.

However, Starbucks’ commitment to sustainability was already under question after Laxman Narasimhan was dismissed just 17 months into the job following a bigger-than-expected drop in sales. The stupendously generous package handed to successor Brian Niccol leaves the judgement and reputation of a board seemingly obsessed with green objectives in complete tatters.

One of the obscene lengths that the company has gone to get their man is an undertaking that Niccol won’t have to relocate to the company’s base in Seattle when he joins the coffee giant next month. Instead, he will be allowed to “commute” to the office from his home 1,000 miles away in Newport Beach, California by private jet. This arrangement is even more ridiculous given that Starbucks felt compelled to hand him a pay deal worth as much as $113m (£86m) during his first year in charge.

As well as providing Niccol with a remote office close to home, Starbucks chairman Mellody Hobson has bent so far backwards to accommodate his many whims that she must be in danger of folding like a used Starbucks napkin. However, even Starbucks’ stupidity is eclipsed by that of Niccol’s previous employers. Within months of Niccol taking the helm of Chipotle in 2018, the restaurant operator announced it was shifting its headquarters from Denver, Colorado, where it had been based for 25 years, to Newport Beach where, coincidentally, Niccol was living with his family.

The cult of the star CEO where companies convince themselves that a single individual is so brilliant that they must fork out whatever it takes to land them was already beginning to get out of hand. It is unclear where all the forthcoming flying up the West Coast will leave Niccol’s carbon footprint in the rankings, but one imagines that it will dwarf that of your typical Starbucks customer. That’s where the company’s green hypocrisy really rankles.

From its “ethically sourced coffee” to its reforestation programs and vegan milk substitutes, the chain seemingly never tires of trying to convince people that it is a force for good in the world – despite several of its initiatives being dismissed by environmental campaigners as greenwashing. If Starbucks really wants to make the world a better place, it should focus on what it does best: pouring creamy drinks down the gullets of its customers instead of endlessly trying to force its empty green agenda down their throats.

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