Tag Archives: starbucks

WeWork kicks meat to the curb in the name of climate change

WeWork announced a company-wide meat ban on Thursday: Poultry, pork, and red meat are officially no longer on the menu at WeWork events. And employees can’t charge meals that contain meat to the company card, either. That’s because the coworking Goliath seems to be moderately concerned that the human race is hurtling toward ecological collapse.

Like it or not, eliminating meat and dairy from your diet is probably the No. 1 thing you can do for the planet. Cutting out plastic straws? Sea turtles the world ’round appreciate it, but in terms of addressing climate change on a planetary scale, it doesn’t cut the mustard. That’s why the folks here at Grist dot org didn’t throw a party when Starbucks made plans to ditch straws and replace them with … plastic sippy cup lids. Perhaps it should take some inspiration from WeWork?

The company’s cofounder dropped the meat ban announcement on his employees in a memo. WeWork, valued at $20 billion, serves 253,000 members across the globe, and none of them will be nibbling on pigs-in-a-blanket on company premises anymore — unless they bring them from home, I guess.

The new meat ban will do the following by 2023, according to the company’s estimates:

Save 16.6 billion gallons of water
Prevent 445.1 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere
Spare the lives of more than 15,000,000 animals

While WeWork’s meat-free commitment is no doubt the most environmentally impactful step it’s taking, the company is also working to reduce its energy consumption by installing LED lights, automatic light switches, and a “global energy consumption dashboard,” something it hopes will help employees keep track of energy usage. It’s also working to reduce construction waste, increase the density of its real estate, and minimize additional construction. The company says its spaces are already 2.5 times more efficient than a typical office.

That’s pretty impressive! And to those of you who say you can’t give up meat, I ask you: Would you rather drink from a plastic sippy cup like a giant baby, or forgo the chicken skewers at your next company picnic like a well-adjusted grownup? The choice is yours. Unless you’re at WeWork, because your bosses already decided for you.

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WeWork kicks meat to the curb in the name of climate change

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Woman Publicly Shames Florida Gov. Rick Scott at Starbucks for Anti-Abortion Bill and Medicaid Cut

Mother Jones

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott was served quite the verbal beatdown on Tuesday after a woman publicly shamed the Republican governor for a laundry list of GOP-supported issues—and it all unfolded on camera at a local Gainesville Starbucks.

“You cut Medicaid so I couldn’t get Obamacare,” Cara Jennings told the visibly shaken governor as he waited to pay for his coffee. “You’re an asshole. You don’t care about the working people. You should be ashamed to show your face around here.”

When Scott attempted to placate Jennings with the defense that his governorship created a million jobs, Jennings refused to back down and continued with her stunning reproach.

“A million jobs?” Jennings responded. “Who here has a great job or is looking forward to finishing school? Do you really feel like you have a job coming up?”

“You strip women of access to public health care. Shame on you, Rick Scott!”

Afterwards, Jennings told a local news station that several people thanked her for taking a stand against the governor. The incident, however, proved too much for Scott, who slunk out of the Starbucks empty-handed.

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Woman Publicly Shames Florida Gov. Rick Scott at Starbucks for Anti-Abortion Bill and Medicaid Cut

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Best Gift Wrapping That’s Not Paper

Wrapping paper is one of those things that looks beautifulfor the few minutes a gift is under a tree or put into the hands of the recipient. Otherwise, it’s a big environmental, and sometimes financial, drain. As far as the planet goes, the amount of paper wasted on wrapping is staggering. Stanford University reports if every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields! Worldwide, wrapping paper spending reaches $2.6 billion yearly. That’s a lot of money to throw away.

Here’s a better idea: Wrap gifts in fabric or containers that can be re-used. For example:

* Japanese Wrapping Cloths – These beautiful cloths come in various sizes and in different themes. Some are very Christmas-y, but others feature flowers and Japanese cultural icons. They’re reasonably priced and can be used over and over again.

* Cloth Christmas Gift Bags – These reusable bags are made from 100 percent cotton and are tied with a ribbon made from 100 percent recycled plastic bottles. They’re available in various sizes and for wine bottles.

* DIY Cloth Gift Bags – Make your own gift bags by sewing three sizes of fabric together, pinking the top with pinking shears and then tying a reusable ribbon around the top. Care2 offers instructions on making your own reusable burlap bags herejust dress them up with a bright and colorful ribbon, and you’re done.

* Reusable Grocery Shopping Bags – For $.99, you can get a reusable shopping bag, either grocery store sized or, at a place like TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, jumbo sized. Putting even larger gifts in a bag saves so much time and paper wrapping, and people invariably love having a bag like this to reuse after the holidays are over.

* Towels & Napkins – Cloth towels and napkins are particularly good for wrapping small kitchen utensils, jars of special spices and sauces, organic coffee or tea, or chocolate.

* Holiday-themed Cardboard Boxes – Decorated cardboard boxes come in a variety of sizes and shapes, so you can use them for clothing, games, food, beauty products and more.

* Socks – Whether you use holiday-themed socks or something more practical, socks can make the perfect “container” for jewelry, cosmetics, a small book, a special knick-knack, small battery chargers and other items. Tie them together at the top with shoelaces and you’ve given gifts within gifts.

* Reusable Food Containers – Use an empty (and clean) cardboard oatmeal canister, a stainless steel pot with a lid, a covered glass casserole dish or something else fun and whimsical. It’s fun to try to guess what might be inside such an unusual wrap.

* Bento Box – All of the compartments in a Bento Box make it perfect for cosmetics or beauty products, jewelry, or other small items. Use the stackable boxes for kid’s toys, like items for a doll house.

* Glass Vase or Bowl – One of the loveliest gifts I ever got was a bunch of Narcissus bulbs already set in stones, in a beautiful antique glass blowl. The bulbs flowered and then died, but I still have that bowl, a treasured gift from a good friend.

What’s your favorite eco-friendly way to wrap a gift? Please share!

Related
5 Eco-Friendly Holiday Gift Wrap IdeasWhat’s in Your Starbucks Gingerbread Latte?
10 Gifts That Also Give to Wildlife

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Best Gift Wrapping That’s Not Paper

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After a Mother Jones Investigation, Starbucks Says It Will Stop Bottling Water in California

Mother Jones

On the heels of a Mother Jones investigation last week that found that Starbucks sources its bottled water from a spring in the heart of California’s drought country, Starbucks announced yesterday that it will phase out use of its California bottling plant for Ethos Water over the next six months. Because of “the serious drought conditions” in California, the company will transition to its Pennsylvania supplier while looking for another source to cover the western United States, Starbucks officials said in a press release.

The California counties from which Starbucks sources and bottles Ethos have been in a drought emergency for years now. Placer County, where Ethos’ spring water is drawn, was already declared a natural disaster area by the USDA because of the drought back in 2012. Reports from more than a year ago noted that the county was already scrambling to deal with the area’s “extreme drought.” Merced county, where the bottling facility is located, declared a local emergency due to drought more than a year ago, as “extremely dry conditions have persisted since 2012.”

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania county to which Starbucks is now shifting its entire national production of Ethos Water is itself facing drought conditions. While not as catastrophic as California’s historic water emergency, Luzerne County, where Starbucks’ east coast supplier sources and bottles Ethos, was declared to be under Drought Watch by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection back in March. DEP issued the declaration after below-normal rainfall over the past year has led to low groundwater levels in the region, which the agency noted has the potential to cause well-fed water supplies to go dry. The state is asking local residents to voluntarily reduce water consumption and to “run water only when absolutely necessary.” DEP has put large water users on notice to plan for possible reductions in water supplies.

Nevertheless, Ethos’ Pennsylvania bottler, Nature’s Way Purewater, which bottles a number of other brands at its facility, announced in January that it planned to double production going forward.

This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, with support from the Puffin Foundation.

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After a Mother Jones Investigation, Starbucks Says It Will Stop Bottling Water in California

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How Software Turns Low-Wage Work Into Constant Chaos

Mother Jones

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I’m glad to see Jodi Kantor of the New York Times write about the way low-wage workers are abused via scheduling software that turns their lives into an endless series of daily emergencies:

Ms. Navarro’s fluctuating hours, combined with her limited resources, had also turned their lives into a chronic crisis over the clock. She rarely learned her schedule more than three days before the start of a workweek, plunging her into urgent logistical puzzles over who would watch the boy….“You’re waiting on your job to control your life,” she said, with the scheduling software used by her employer dictating everything from “how much sleep Gavin will get to what groceries I’ll be able to buy this month.”

Last month, she was scheduled to work until 11 p.m. on Friday, July 4; report again just hours later, at 4 a.m. on Saturday; and start again at 5 a.m. on Sunday. She braced herself to ask her aunt, Karina Rivera, to watch Gavin, hoping she would not explode in annoyance, or worse, refuse.

….Along with virtually every major retail and restaurant chain, Starbucks relies on software that choreographs workers in precise, intricate ballets, using sales patterns and other data to determine which of its 130,000 baristas are needed in its thousands of locations and exactly when….Scheduling is now a powerful tool to bolster profits, allowing businesses to cut labor costs with a few keystrokes. “It’s like magic,” said Charles DeWitt, vice president for business development at Kronos, which supplies the software for Starbucks and many other chains.

I don’t know what the answer to this is, but it’s yet another way that the lives of low-income workers have become more and more stressful over time. There’s just no such thing as regular hours anymore, and for parents of small children this turns their lives into nonstop chaos. Read the whole thing to get a taste of what this means. Working a low-wage job at a national chain isn’t what it used to be even a couple of decades ago.

UPDATE: Starbucks has responded in an email from Cliff Burrows, the group president in charge of United States stores, to its workers:

Mr. Burrows told them the company would revise its software to allow more human input from managers into scheduling. It would banish the practice, much loathed by workers, of asking them to “clopen” — close the store late at night and return just a few hours later to reopen. He said all work hours must be posted at least one week in advance, a policy that has been only loosely followed in the past. And the company would try to move workers with more than an hour’s commute to more convenient locations, he said.

Good for Starbucks. This doesn’t address every scheduling issue their workers face, but it’s a good start. It would be nice if others big chains followed their example.

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How Software Turns Low-Wage Work Into Constant Chaos

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This Huge Corporation Is Tackling Climate Change—Because It’s a Threat to the Bottom Line

Mother Jones

A few months ago, the international food manufacturing giant General Mills was branded a “clear laggard” by climate activists for not doing enough to cut its carbon footprint. Oxfam International accused the company of dragging its feet on reducing so-called “scope 3” greenhouse gas emissions—those not directly controlled by the company, but essential in making its products; for example, emissions from a farm contracted by General Mills to grow the oats that eventually wind up in your cereal bowl. Oxfam also faulted the company for not using its clout to engage directly with governments to “positively influence climate change policy.”

General Mills’ worldwide sales total $17.9 billion, and it owns familiar consumer brands like Cheerios, Old El Paso, and Pillsbury.

Today, Oxfam is claiming big victory: General Mills has released a new set of climate policies that Oxfam says makes it “the first major food and beverage company to promise to implement long-term science-based targets to cut emissions.”

The policy states unequivocally that General Mills believes that climate change is a big threat to global food security and its future business model:

As a global food company, General Mills recognizes the risks that climate change presents to humanity, our environment and our livelihoods. Changes in climate not only affect global food security but also impact General Mills’ raw material supply which, in turn, affects our ability to deliver quality, finished product to our consumers and ultimately, value to our shareholders.

Here are the key points of General Mills’ announcement:

By August 2015, the company has promised to account for emissions across its entire operation and to set clear reduction targets.
The company promises to reduce emissions with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The company also aims to achieve “zero net deforestation” in “high-risk supply chains” by 2020. (This doesn’t necessarily mean “zero deforestation,” but rather that destroyed forests are replaced). General Mills says these high-risk supply chains include land that provides palm oil, packaging fiber, beef, soy, and sugarcane.
The company will also now disclose its top three suppliers of palm oil and sugarcane.

In another big step, the company also announced today that it will join BICEP—Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy)—”to advocate more closely with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation,” according to the company. The group of 31 companies (including big guns like eBay and Starbucks) is run by the non-profit Ceres, and is designed to help businesses directly lobby policymakers on issues like renewable energy, green transportation, and pollution controls on power plants. Ceres also campaigns to get companies and investors to adopt more sustainable environmental practices.

Oxfam spokesman Grossman-Cohen believes that his group’s campaign helped motivate General Mills to make the changes. “It is in General Mills’ business interest to address climate change,” he wrote to me in an email. “But there’s no doubt that the public outcry helps ensure that the company’s efforts are as robust as they can be.”

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This Huge Corporation Is Tackling Climate Change—Because It’s a Threat to the Bottom Line

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