Starbucks : How Starbucks Plans to Make an Impact by 2020 and Beyond

When Starbucks launched its first corporate social responsibility report in 2002, its aspiration was to be recognized as much for its commitment to social responsibility as the quality of its coffee. In every year since, Starbucks has set ambitious goals, transparently reporting on progress and acknowledging challenges, and then stretching to new ones.

On the way, the company has reached milestones that would have been tough to envision 15 years ago, reaching 99 percent ethically sourced coffee, creating a global network of farmer support centers around the world, pioneering green building throughout its store portfolio, contributing millions of hours of community service, and creating a groundbreaking college program for Starbucks partners (employees).

With its 2016 Global Social Impact Report, Starbucks is sharing its vision for 2020 and beyond in the areas of coffee sustainability, greener retail and community engagement. Its comprehensive set of goals includes the company's recent hiring commitments, planting trees, renewable energy and food rescue. The report also highlights the company's new plans to reduce the environmental impact of its cups, engage partners in environmental leadership, and promote community service in its more than 25,000 stores.

'As a company, we are committed to using our scale to positively impact the communities we serve around the world,' said John Kelly, senior vice president of Global Social Impact and Public Policy. 'These goals represent our aspiration to create impact on the issues that matter.'

The report demonstrates the impact Starbucks partners have made in communities around the world - what new coffee trees mean for a second-generation farmer in Guatemala, how a barista in Beijing is helping his community, and why a store manager in San Antonio is working to end hunger. The report also highlights the impact the company has made working with strategic partner organizations.

'Providing healthy trees to farmers in coffee-growing regions makes existing lands more productive and keeps us from expanding into forests,' said Dr. M. Sanjayan, Conservation International executive vice president and senior scientist. 'We're proud to stand alongside Starbucks in this long-term endeavor to ensure that both livelihoods and nature around the world are vibrant and healthy.'

Starbucks Global Social Impact Goals

Sustainable Coffee

Starbucks is working to increase the prosperity and resilience of the one million farmers and workers who grow Starbucks coffee around the world by investing in coffee communities, sharing technical coffee knowledge, and innovating with new agricultural approaches.

Sourcing commitment: Offer 100 percent ethically sourced coffee. By joining with others in the industry, Starbucks hopes to make coffee the world's first sustainable agricultural product.

Planting trees: Provide 100 million trees to farmers by 2025, part of a commitment to one billion coffee trees through the Sustainable Coffee Challenge.

Global Farmer Fund: Invest $50 million in financing for farmers by 2020.

Open-source agronomy: Train 200,000 coffee farmers by 2020 to improve the long-term sustainability of their crops and livelihoods through Starbucks Farmer Support Centers and other innovative efforts.

Greener Retail

Starbucks hopes to be the world's largest green retail business, building and operating stores with an aim to minimize its environmental footprint.

Greener cup: Double the recycled content, recyclability and the reusability of Starbucks cups by 2020.

Greener stores: Build and operate 10,000 Greener Retail stores globally by 2025 under its new verification program that promotes environmental building standards, energy efficiency and partner engagement.

Greener power: Invest in 100 percent renewable energy to power operations at company-owned stores globally by 2020, and bring new renewable projects onto the grids of the countries where the company operates around the world.

Greener partners: Empower 10,000 partners worldwide to be sustainability champions by 2020 through Partners for Sustainability and the Greener Apron voluntary certification program with Arizona State University.

Creating Opportunities

Starbucks is dedicated to creating pathways to meaningful employment for veterans and military spouses, Opportunity Youth and refugees.

Veterans and military spouses: Hire 25,000 veterans and military spouses by 2025.

Starbucks College Achievement Plan: Have 25,000 graduates by 2025 and increase the program's accessibility and performance.

Opportunity Youth: Employ 100,000 Opportunity Youth by 2020, reaching young people who are disconnected from work and school.

Refugees: Hire 10,000 refugees globally by 2022.

Strengthening Communities

Every Starbucks store is a part of a community, and Starbucks works to strengthen each neighborhood it serves.

FoodShare: Rescue 100 percent of food available to donate by 2020 in U.S. company-owned stores.

Community Service: Have 100 percent of Starbucks stores globally participate in community service each year by 2020.

For more information on this news release, contact the Starbucks Newsroom