Latest / Best of Business / Michael Kobori: former Starbucks Chief Sustainability Officer on why being 'woke' is good for businesses

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Michael Kobori: former Starbucks Chief Sustainability Officer on why being 'woke' is good for businesses · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks at Bee.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: It seems that we live in an age where businesses
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  Speaker 3: and countries are winding back the climate commitments a bit
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  Speaker 3: after years of going full throttle. You've got the Net
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  Speaker 3: Zero Banking Alliance shutting down neslayers quit, the Dairy Methane
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  Speaker 3: Action Alliance, and closer to home, the government yesterday water
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  Speaker 3: down climate related reporting requirements for listed companies. And yet
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  Speaker 3: there's someone who was adamant that being woke is actually
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  Speaker 3: good for business. Michael Kobori was the sustainability boss at
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  Speaker 3: Starbucks and also worked at Levi's Hi Michael, Hi, Heather,
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  Speaker 3: How is being woke for actually good for business in
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  Speaker 3: the face of everything we're seeing at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Heather, I would say that it isn't so much
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  Speaker 2: about being woke. It is about doing what is good
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  Speaker 2: for your business. And I have worked on sustainability for
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  Speaker 2: large global cumps companies like Starbucks and Levi, Strauss and
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  Speaker 2: Company for nearly thirty years, and we've always focused on
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  Speaker 2: those sustainability issues that are material in a financial sense
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  Speaker 2: to our companies. And I'm very proud to say that
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  Speaker 2: through that work, we've helped our companies become more financially successful.
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  Speaker 3: Give me an example, well.
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  Speaker 2: I would say that, for example, coffee at Starbucks, coffee
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  Speaker 2: is an existential issue. Now, many of your listeners this
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  Speaker 2: morning may be enjoying their cup of coffee. I will
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  Speaker 2: tell you that coffee only grows in the tropics above
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  Speaker 2: one thousand meters in the mountains. Okay, Now, because the
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  Speaker 2: climate is warming the planet, because we have extreme heat
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  Speaker 2: and droughts and rain and floods, because pests and disease
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  Speaker 2: like coffee leaf rust on the increase, coffee is under threat.
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  Speaker 2: By the year twenty fifty, the amount of land that
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  Speaker 2: we can grow coffee on will be reduced fifty percent.
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  Speaker 2: Get that again, By twenty fifty, the amount of land
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  Speaker 2: that we can use for coffee will be cut in half.
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  Speaker 2: And so the company has extensive programs that are working
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  Speaker 2: on developing new varieties of coffee that can withstand climate change.
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  Speaker 2: We're teaching farmers more sustainable agricultural techniques, and we as
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  Speaker 2: a company, and we're encouraging other companies to reduce their
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  Speaker 2: carbon emissions because guess what if we can reduce that
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  Speaker 2: we can help keep the temperature jet down and actually
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  Speaker 2: help make sure that we can all enjoy that cup
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  Speaker 2: of coffee in the morning.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And yet, I mean Starbucks famously got busted, I
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  Speaker 3: think it was last year, right for this wanting wanting
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  Speaker 3: to do all the right things by the climate, and
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  Speaker 3: yet the CEO gets mission and a private jet to
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  Speaker 3: be able to fly from his home and I think
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  Speaker 3: it was California to Washington or something, wasn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that was part of his compensation package. And I
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  Speaker 2: have to tell you that that was something that has
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  Speaker 2: a nearly it's in the it's in the one one
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  Speaker 2: millionth of an impact on the company's carbon emissions, and
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  Speaker 2: we were able to engage in other programs that completely
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  Speaker 2: offset that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but doesn't that doesn't that underscore though, that if
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  Speaker 3: you are going to say that this is what your
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  Speaker 3: business is about, and you're going to make it part
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  Speaker 3: of your business story, you cannot deviate from that. Because
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  Speaker 3: that was that created some terrible backlash for Starbucks.
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  Speaker 2: Look, it was probably not the greatest news out there,
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  Speaker 2: but it doesn't overshadow all of these substantive things that
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  Speaker 2: the company has been doing. Did not all introduced or
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  Speaker 2: carbon emission. We've literally invested millions of dollars in new
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  Speaker 2: renewable power generation across the United States and in communities
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  Speaker 2: that sorely needed. The last one was seventy three million
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  Speaker 2: dollars literally on an Indigenous Indian reservation in near San Diego, California.
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  Speaker 2: So the company is making significant investments for renewable power generator.
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  Speaker 3: So, Michael, would you not would the company not be smarter?
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  Speaker 3: Would the smart and rational thing not be actually, instead
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  Speaker 3: of wasting my words, not yours, instead of wasting money
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  Speaker 3: on you know, trying to cut a missions, encouraging others
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  Speaker 3: to cut a missions, climate reporting, all that kind of stuff,
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  Speaker 3: would the company not be better off putting all of
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  Speaker 3: that money into doing the thing that you mentioned earlier,
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  Speaker 3: which is trying to find coffee beans that will grow
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  Speaker 3: in climate change, you know, in the new weather System.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Heather, we're doing both, right, of course, we're trying
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  Speaker 2: to get coffee to the point where it can survive
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  Speaker 2: climate change. But if we and others don't do anything
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  Speaker 2: to reduce our carbon emissions, then we're not addressing the
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  Speaker 2: source of the problem. Right. The planet is heating up,
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  Speaker 2: which is causing all of these problems for coffee and
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  Speaker 2: reducing the email land.
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  Speaker 3: And that's that's that is I mean, that's fair, that's
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  Speaker 3: a fair argument. But if I was a shareholder, I
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  Speaker 3: would say to you, listen, Starbucks is going to have
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  Speaker 3: about no impact on climate change, realistically, stop wasting money
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  Speaker 3: on it. Put your money into adaptation. Wouldn't wouldn't that
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  Speaker 3: be the rational thing for a shareholder to demand.
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  Speaker 2: Well, actually, our shareholders are demanding both, and so are
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  Speaker 2: our customers, and so are the employees of Starbucks and
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  Speaker 2: many other large companies. And so that is what the
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  Speaker 2: company pays attention to. It's what any company is going
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  Speaker 2: to pay attention to. What do your customers want, what
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  Speaker 2: do your employees want, and what do your investors want?
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  Speaker 2: And they want abbs absolutely for us to address the
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  Speaker 2: issues around the environment that are material to the company,
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  Speaker 2: and for a company that is a food and beverage
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  Speaker 2: retailer like Starbucks, it absolutely is carbon. It's water because
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  Speaker 2: coffee is ninety nine percent water, and it's waste. Every year,
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  Speaker 2: Starbucks has forty Starbucks has forty thousand stores around the world,
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  Speaker 2: and every year it uses literally billions of single use
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  Speaker 2: cups and so addressing that waste is one of the
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  Speaker 2: big issues that we were focused on at Starbucks, and
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  Speaker 2: certainly the industry is focused on because our customers and
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  Speaker 2: our employees want to see us address issues like that.
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  Speaker 3: All right, Michael, it is good to talk to you.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you for your perspective. That's Michael Kobori, the former
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  Speaker 3: Starbucks Chief Sustainability Officer, also at Levi's.
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