Starbucks wants to get “Back to Starbucks.” So why has it just dropped or scaled back most of the sustainability goals it set in 2020, including its targets to halve water use and landfill waste, while CEO Brian Niccol pushes through $2 billion in cost cuts?
This week on EQ News, Jamila Brown and Jenn McGarrigle get into the Financial Times report on Starbucks’ retreat from its green goals. Jamila confesses to walking into a Climate Week event in New York holding a single-use Starbucks cup. Jenn, a former Starbucks barista and coffee master, remembers the company it used to be: compost bags made from coffee grounds, pastries donated to local shelters, and a “third place” people actually wanted to spend time in.
They talk about why watered-down goals worry them more than missed ones, how a change in what gets counted turned 500 billion litres of water into 53 billion, why a coffee company should treat climate change as one of its biggest business risks, and the citywide reusable cup trial in California that worked and then quietly disappeared. Plus, the private jet commute.
Is it greenwashing to set a goal you might miss? Who should a sustainability team really report to? And can “Back to Starbucks” work while cutting the people who made it Starbucks?
Stories mentioned: Financial Times, “Starbucks retreats from green goals amid $2bn cost drive” (29 September 2026). Bloomberg, “Hot Potatoes Mean Higher Prices and Shorter Fries in Europe” (16 September 2026).
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