SEATTLE Even as Starbucks continues to close underperfoming stores, the coffeehouse giant is planning the growth of a prototype that is green and local.
The 16,000-unit chain on Thursday announced a new global store design strategy that will emphasize the use of local craftsmen and reused and recycled materials. In addition, Starbucks plans to achieve LEED certification — a designation recognizing environmentally friendly building and design — for all new company-operated stores, beginning late next year.
Three prototype stores have opened this year with the new design elements, officials said. In March, a unit in Seattle opened just blocks away from the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market featuring what company officials described as a “warm and rustic” design, “reflecting the look and feel of a workmen’s commissary.”
Among the eco-friendly design elements in the unit are columns, a floor and a ceiling that were preserved from existing buildings, cabinet wood that comes from fallen trees in the Seattle area, leather on the bar that is scrap from auto and shoe factories, and a community table that came from another local restaurant.
Other green units opened in June at Paris Disney Village and Seattle’s University Village. All three of the new stores are LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certified. LEED is a nationally recognized and independent system that measures the environmental performance of buildings. LEED certification is determined by the U.S. Green Building Council.
“We recognize the importance of continuously evolving with our customers’ interests, lifestyles and values in order to stay relevant over the long term,” said Arthur Rubinfeld, president of Starbucks Global Development. “Our new design approach will allow customers to feel truly at home when visiting their local store and give them opportunities for discovery at our other locations around the world.”
Rubinfeld is credited with creating the store atmosphere that defined the Starbucks brand in the early 1990s, though he later left the company. He returned in February 2008, not long after chairman Howard Schultz resumed his role as chief executive.
Starbucks has also established the goal of making company-operated stores 25 percent more energy efficient by 2010. The company said it would replace incandescent light bulbs inside its stores with energy-saving LED bulbs as part of a global retrofit program. Stores will aim to derive 50 percent of energy used from renewable sources by next year.
The company also plans to ensure that all of its cup supply will be reusable or recyclable by 2015 and recycling will be available in all company stores where Starbucks controls waste collection by 2015.
Starbucks is continuing with the planned closure of more than 900 underperforming stores, a process that began in early 2008, and new openings have been cut back significantly. This year, Starbucks plans to open 95 new company-operated locations and 145 new international stores.
Contact Lisa Jennings at [email protected].
