Not from their piping hot coffee but from the fact that starbucks is wasting millions of liters of water everyday.
It all started when the UK newspaper "The Sun," revealed that over 23.4m liters of water are poured daily down the drains of 10,000 outlets of the coffee chain worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop.
STARBUCKS has a liquidity problem.
Not from their piping hot coffee but from the fact that starbucks is wasting millions of liters of water everyday.
It all started when the UK newspaper "The Sun," revealed that over 23.4m liters of water are poured daily down the drains of 10,000 outlets of the coffee chain worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop.
This amount of water, according to the newspaper, is enough daily water for the entire two million population of Namibia in Africa, which has severe droughts, or to fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes.
Each Starbucks has a cold tap behind the counter that runs into a sink known as a "dipper well" -- used to wash utensils. Under the company's health and safety rules, staffs are banned from turning the water off because management claims that a constant flow of water prevents germs breeding in taps.
I was able to confirm this setup when I went to a local Starbucks outlet. As soon as I got there, I looked behind their counter and saw the "dipper well" and the continuously running faucet, which I believe is a standard arrangement in all their coffee shops.
This running water policy was revealed recently after a Starbucks executive wrote back to a couple in the United Kingdom who complained about the tap at their local branch. But my Internet research showed that this practice was already highlighted in China in October last year. I wondered why it did not catch much attention at that time.
In the story posted in the website ChinaCSR.com, the explanation that Starbucks' Headquarters in Shanghai gave to Chinese media in response to criticism that the company is wasting the country's water resources is the same as what was given recently in the UK: that the constant water flow in the Starbucks' stores is for washing the food utensils and the flowing water can prevent the growth of microorganism and bacteria.
In fairness to Starbucks, they have a good Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs ranging from ethical sourcing of coffee to environmental management. They support a lot of environmental groups too like Conservation International, Earthwatch Institute and the African Wildlife Foundation.
The company was even honored by the National Recycling Coalition based in Washington D.C. for its leadership in Recycling and was conferred the Green Power Leadership Award in 2005 and 2006 by the US Environmental Protection Agency for its use of clean energy.
In their 28-page Abridged CSR Report for 2006, Starbucks claimed to have saved 178 million liters of water for the year by switching to hot cups with 10 percent post-consumer recycled fiber content. That's a lot of water saved, but sadly it's overshadowed by their alleged daily wastage of 23 million liters.
I guess Starbucks needs to look at other ways of maintaining its high cleanliness and health standards without using too much water. Not only because of public pressure but to live up to its commitment of being an environmentally responsible company.
We too, as individuals, ought to look at opportunities to save water. This precious and limited natural resource is predicted to be the "oil" of the not-so-distant future.
www.starbucks.com
