How Starbucks’ former CSO secured internal buy-in for his climate agenda

3 月 11, 2025

8:28 上午

One of the first things Michael Kobori did after joining Starbucks as its first chief sustainability officer in January 2020 was buy a new jean jacket and add some patches.

His new employer’s green siren logo was soon followed by one honoring “The Lorax,” the Dr. Seuss book that inspired then-CEO Kevin Johnson’s interest in building a stronger environmental sustainability program. His internal code name: the Lorax Project.

Kobori was hired to help Starbucks deliver on its commitment to become “resource positive,” kickstarted by 2030 goals of 50 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, water and waste.

That jacket — now with dozens more pins and patches — became Kobori’s conversation-starter as he began the job of convincing Starbucks’ leadership team of the potential bottom-line benefits of ethical ingredient sourcing, water conservation and energy management.

As the strategy permeated, Kobori outfitted his team and anyone helping build the company’s strategy with their own jackets — as he did in his previous role as vice president of sustainability at Levi Strauss & Co. The uniform became a badge of honor that shifted the perception of environmental goals and metrics within Starbucks. One of the first things he requested after joining: that each business function and division head take accountability for goals that affected their business mandate.

“We changed the mindset of leaders in the company from thinking that sustainability was a project here, a project there, to believing in the vision that this could be a more sustainable company,” Kobori said during the latest episode of Trellis’s Climate Pioneers interview series. “We got people to believe.”

Cultivate allies before you need them

Now, it’s time for Kobori to hang up his Starbucks jacket. His retirement in December capped a three-decade career in sustainability and ethical sourcing of commodities, including coffee and cotton.

Progress at Starbucks was uneven under his watch.

On emissions: The chain’s absolute emissions have increased 8 percent since the 2019 baseline year, as of its fiscal year 2023 progress report. Still, there has been a 20 percent decrease in emissions per dollar of revenue, and Starbucks has classified almost 16 percent of its 38,587 cafes as “Greener Stores,” locations that meet rigorous requirements for waste, energy and water savings.
On water: Starbucks has reduced withdrawals by 9 percent since the baseline.
On waste: The company sent 13 percent more waste to landfill, while 14 percent of its packaging was reusable, recyclable or compostable.

Kobori used the same playbook at Starbucks and Levi Strauss to embrace suggested operational changes. Two of his tactics:

Understand the ripple effects of strategy changes from field to customer. Kobori first met Starbucks’ leadership when he was consulted about Levi Strauss’ work on the Better Cotton Initiative, which the jean maker uses to certify that growers are reducing pesticide and water use, among other things. Starbucks buys coffee through a similar verification program, called C.A.F.E. (Coffee and Farmer Equity), that reaches 400,000 farmers.
Identify points of influence and operationalize best practices. Starbucks prioritizes continuous training for baristas on a range of issues, including food waste, energy efficiency and managing reusable packaging. At Levi Strauss, a key point of influence was farmers.

Don’t take no for an answer

In initial meetings at Starbucks, Kobori listened, asked questions and got personal.

“You’ve got to build the relationships before you need them,” he said. “Find out what’s important to them, right? What motivates them? What do they see as success? And then come back to that.”

Kobori is relentless in advocating new ideas. An example was his campaign to reduce Starbucks’ use of disposable cups and get more customers using reusable ones.

It’s one of the biggest behavior changes required for Starbucks to meet its waste reduction goal, Kobori said. But Starbucks cups are the most visible manifestation of its brand, and its packaging team was reluctant to alienate customers.

“After a couple of years of work and influencing and giving them all the argument and data and analysis they became our biggest champions,” Kobori said.

While Starbucks is a long way from ditching disposable cups, it was the first coffee chain to incorporate reusable options into mobile and drive-through orders in the U.S. and Canada after months of field tests. This is the packaging team’s challenge to solve, not as a side project but as part of a long-term strategy shift.

“They still had to deliver packaging that was high performing, that met our cost targets, that was appealing to the customer — all the things that packaging needs to deliver,” Kobori said. “That is truly the way of the future and the way that companies should operate. We’ve all got to embed it in how we do our business, in every function.”

Time to take back the narrative

Kobori entered the corporate sustainability field after five years of human rights and public policy work in the nonprofit sector. Many practices that were nascent at the beginning of his career — such as corporate commitments to safe working conditions and fair wages — have become table stakes.

“We all have to track it, measure it, set targets, track our performance, and it’s all public and shared with our investors and stakeholders,” he said.

Despite the anti-ESG backlash and anti-climate agenda of the Trump administration, Kobori believes the private sector has reached a similar tipping-point moment when it comes to mainstreaming environmental sustainability alongside other business metrics. He implores sustainability professionals to maintain perspective, and points out that their job titles didn’t exist 30 years ago when he was getting started. “We’ve created a profession that didn’t exist,” he said.

Tellingly, his early retirement plans include mentoring the next generation of sustainability leaders.

“In my opinion, the reaction we’re seeing is because all those forces opposing corporate sustainability and the corporate role in society are desperate,” Kobori said. “They see the future. They see this has become mainstream, and they don’t like it, and so they’re fighting very hard against it. We just need to stand firm and keep going.”