Sustainability in Australia is considered to be a great concern for the business organisations due to variety in the environment as well as in the society as well. The aim of sustainability is coupled with the question of environmental stability and social cohesion and the business organisations have played a significant role in this regard. For an instance, the Starbucks Coffee Company maintains a serious approach towards ensuring sustainability both environmentally and socially. It is in the aims and vision of the Starbucks Company to take a major part in the sustainability programs like incorporate the local communities and youths by giving them the opportunities of employment. Moreover, facilitating environment stewardship is also a strategic measure that the Company follows while doing business in Australia (The Starbucks Story, 2018). In this context, the purpose of this report is to identify the sustainability measures that the Starbucks Company practices in doing business in Australia. At the same time the report also reflects the issues regarding these practices and trying to find out the gaps behind the flaws on behalf of the Starbucks Australia. Furthermore, the discussion recommends some necessary steps in order to resolve the sustainability issues by highlighting the intersecting circle model as a key step.
Started business since 1971 the Starbucks Coffee Company is considered to be one of the largest coffee and beverages provider across the world (The Starbucks Story, 2018). The Company inaugurated its first outlet at Seattle Pike Place Market and gradually expanded its business all over the world. Now, the Company has millions of customers with a monopoly in 76 overseas markets which generate huge profit for the Starbucks Coffee Company. In this context, the Starbucks Coffee Company has initiated its business in Australia since July 2000 (The Starbucks Story, 2018). It can be argued that this new entry in the Australian market facilitates a strategic boost to the Company’s market capitalisation. The Australian coffee market is well known for its fondness towards good quality coffee beans and Starbucks grabbed that opportunity and started investing in Australia rapidly. The first store was opened at Sydney Central Business District where price and quality are the most important factor for sustaining in the intense competition (Tikson, 2018). However, Starbucks proved its loyalty to the customer by providing best ever coffee and gradually expanded its business further with an amount of 34 coffee houses in Sydney, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Melbourne. Customer loyalty and creating friendly neighbourhood are the primary concern for the Company and till date Starbucks follows this policy effectively.
Both in the form of corporate sustainability and the environmental sustainability the Starbucks Company establishes several strategic measures. The measures are as follows
As far as sustainable development is concerned, it is considered to be a major factor for the future business operations of an organisation. In fact, sustainable development is a wider concept encapsulates the ideas of economic growth and social and environmental ethics (Beckmann, Hielscher, & Pies, 2014). In this regard, the Starbucks Australia is also resembled the same vision of sustainable development by implementing different strategies and planning in response to increase maximize its market capitalisation (Vallström, Lindholm & AbuBakr, 2017). For instances, in the light of environmental paradigm the Starbucks Australia is committed to buying and serving best quality and ethically traded coffee (Mission Statement, 2018). Moreover, the Company also takes deep concern over the farmers and suppliers in order to foster a better future based on stable climate.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has a deep impact on the business orientation of a company. Therefore, putting great concern on CSR can be a strategic step for any organisation to continue its business profoundly in future (Ma et al., 2018). In this context, the Starbucks Australia is dedicatedly followed the inclusion and diversity policy in its workplace environment. Equality or indiscrimination is the basis of this practice. It can be argued that the Australian society is full of distinct race, gender, ethnicity, culture and religion (Gonzalez, Erogul & Barragan, 2017). Irrespective of all these differences the Starbucks Australia embraces diverse workforce as a reflection of the Corporate Social responsibility (Global Responsibility, 2018).
Moreover, commitment to the neighbourhood is also identified as an important aspect that the Company follows. The Starbucks Foundation is responsible to take care of these matters. Involving the community in Company business, initiating community services and providing proper trainings opportunities to the youths in Australian communities are part of the community development program conducted by the Starbucks Australia (Global Responsibility, 2018).
The Starbucks Australia is committed to bring positive impact on the environment and the ecological system by minimising the adverse effects. The Company is always looking for better measures to curb down the negative impacts in terms of high rate of energy consumption and emission of greenhouse gases (Environmental Stewardship, 2018). Moreover, wastage of foods and unethical trade of coffee beans are not tolerated by the Company in order to establish a better future and healthy planet by sharing food and excellence (Zsolnai, 2015).
The environmental stewardship has been facilitated in several ways by the Starbucks Australia. Such as, 100% recycling facilities, bio-degradable plates and the 100% reusable coffee cups are the major steps that the Starbucks Australia has taken in order to fulfil their commitments towards environmental sustainability (Environmental Stewardship, 2018). As a matter of fact, the Company also aims to reduce the environmental footprints with the help of the energy and water conservation and constructing greens.
Despite of having a series of initial success the Starbucks Australia is now facing several issues regarding its sustainability. The issues are as follows,
According to Harper (2017), the Starbucks Australia is facing a sever challenge with the introduction of reusable cups. It is not a typical thing in Starbucks Australia in fact the entire Starbucks chains are dealing with the same problem. As a matter of fact, the Company announced to change 25% of the regular cups by the reusable greener cups. However, in reality after the end of the 2011 it was seen that there was only 1.9% progress in the initiative. Moreover, there are issues regarding the indiscriminate use of straws and coffee cups. The Starbucks Company dumped more than 2 billion straws every year only in US. As far as the report of the Ocean Conservancy, it can be argued that the Starbucks Company has some issues regarding indiscriminate use of straws and as a result of that it causes pollution in the marine life (Breuer et al., 2018). Therefore, the Starbucks Company really need to change their policies by introducing renewable straws as well. In addition to this, the Starbucks Australia is also committed to use antibiotics-free poultry by 2020. All of these measures are either yet to be practised or did not implemented properly. As a result of that the Company is facing enormous challenges from the environment friendly organisations domestically or internationally.
It can be argued that the Australian society is still dealing with important issues like racism. From the government policies to the public and private organisations everywhere in Australia racism is growing like a cancer. In this regard, it will be a great opportunity for the Starbucks Australia to give a message about anti-racism and that will enhance its acceptability and presence in the Australian market (Tikson, 2018). Despite of knowing those facts, the Company is not so fond of fostering further campaign on the equality. These issues are further escalated when the Starbucks US was alleged for racial abusiveness. It causes a decline in the popularity of Starbucks around the globe and held responsible Starbucks for such heinous acts (Baertlein, 2018).
High pricing status is also an important aspect in this regard. It can be stated that there is no such direct relation between the sustainability of Starbucks and high pricing strategy. However, the high pricing strategy creates a negative image of the Company which is not good at all. As per research carried out by Elliott (2016) it can be seen that the high pricing strategy of the Starbucks Australia is meant for only the high income customers. Students and youths who do not have lump sum money are not able to buy coffee in Starbucks. This is also identified as some sort of discrimination on the basis of income ratio.
The Starbucks Australia is committed to train the local youths to get employment in the Starbucks outlets (Diversity and Inclusion, 2018). This is also mentioned in the community development program of the Company. However, lack of trained attendants causes a serious threat to the Company. As a matter of fact, this issue creates problem in expanding the business of Starbucks Australia as well. Moreover, the professionalism and quality of service, the key factors that popularise Starbucks to a great extent are now questioned by the experts. This in return damages the goodwill of the company and has the ability to curtail the future prospect of Starbucks in Australia (Baertlein, 2018).
In the context of environmental stewardship, the Starbucks Australia also witnesses problems. As far as the energy consumption goals of the Company are concerned, Starbucks sets its goal to reduce the energy consumption up to 25% within 2010 (Lubin, 2014). Nevertheless, the Company failed to meet the target because of lack of management initiatives and the inadequate infrastructure. Recently, the Company claimed that they will surely reduce the energy consumption up to 25% within the next 5 years (Sanchez, 2015). However, there are no sign of progress regarding this issue and the management deliberately delays the program in order to ensure more earning.
According to Harper (2017) the Starbucks Australia outlets wasted millions of litres of water in its outlets every day for washing the utensils and coffee machines. The water conservation companies jointly ventured with the environmental activists in UK to study the wastage of water by Starbucks. They revealed that in UK among the 700 branches of Starbucks the outlets are wasting around 1.63 million waters every day which is equivalent to the supply of water in the Derbyshire. The same practice is also prevalent in Australia and the Company management are not taking any effective step to resolve the issue.
For continuing the future business operations successfully and making progress it is important for the Starbucks Coffee Company to maintain a strong sustainability framework. As a matter of fact, the Company is facing various sustainability issues that are detrimental for the future prospect of the company. In this regard, the intersecting circle model is very important. As per the general overview of this model it can be stated that the intersecting circle model has two major aspects. One is identified as the possibility of relationships among the CSR domains. On the other hand, it rejects the hierarchical model of importance (Carroll, 2015).
According to Schwartz (2017) the intersecting circle model is responsible to create an understanding based on all the major understanding instead of the hierarchical prioritisation. This model in particularly is used in the Corporate social responsibility. However, it has a close affinity with the overall sustainability of an organisation. In his book Pedersen (2015) argued that the intersecting circle model is a dynamic paradigm that intersected with different factors of ensuring sustainability. As a result of that the entire framework will be effective and efficient to establish a better sustainability strategy. There are four element bestowed in the model in the form of philanthropic, legal, ethical and the economic (Kanji & Agrawal, 2016). Each element is connected to the other and facilitates a better result to set up the sustainability for a long future.
As far as the vitality and effectiveness of the model is concerned, it has a significant relevance in course of dealing with the sustainability issues in Starbucks Australia. As it has been described earlier that not a single issue is responsible for creating obstacles in the future expansion of the Company therefore it will never be proper to deal with the issues in an order based on priority. Rather it is essential to deal with all the issues simultaneously because each of the issues is connected to the other (Gonzalez, Erogul, & Barragan, 2017). For an example, the robust implementation of the reusable cups and straws is not only met the environmental sustainability but it will also have a link with the corporate paradigm also. In one hand, it will reduce the wastages on the other the profit of the Company will also increase with a progress in the brand image (Vallström, Lindholm & AbuBakr, 2017).
It is important for the Starbucks to enlist all the issues regarding sustainability at first. After that taking decision in order to implement the measures is important. However, it is essential for the Starbucks Australia to keep in mind about the interconnection between all the issues. The next phase is identified as checking the effectiveness of the adequate steps because the entire process is depended upon the measures. Finally, the improvement part will figure out how far the steps are required changes. In other words, the role of the improvement part is to measure the intensity of the change (Vilk?, 2017).
Conclusion
Maintaining sustainability resembles a great significance in course of the future expansion of a business organisation. It helps to deliver a better brand image of the company through commitment towards creating a better world based on the environmental balances and social equality. In this regards, the Starbucks Company is also expresses its willingness to stabilise the ecological degradation by implementing new goals and ideas. This report was truly reflected those ideas and measures that the Starbucks Australia Coffee Company has taken as an example of their commitment towards corporate environmental sustainability. In fact, the Company wanted to dedicate itself as an environmental stewardship leading the business organisation towards sustainability. In course of the action, the Starbucks Company initiated some programs like using reusable cups and straws, reducing water wastage, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in terms of community involvement in the green earth projects and the firm stance against discrimination. However, the report showed that there were enormous gaps in manifesting the policies and practical implication. A lacuna was there in terms of the reluctance and bereft of technology and procedure. At the end of the discussion, the report thus recommended a strategy for resolving the sustainability issues with the help of the intersecting circle model and a planning to create better sustainability framework. Therefore, it can be concluded that the report shared a relevant vision of the importance of sustainability for Starbucks Australia and the strategic measures to mitigate sustainability issues that would paved the way for Starbucks to ensure a bright future to do business in Australia.
Reference
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