The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that Starbucks has increased its ranking to No. 4 on EPA’s National Top 50 list of the largest green power purchasers. This increased purchase further demonstrates Starbucks’ commitment to protecting the environment and builds upon its existing partnership with EPA's Green Power Partnership.
Starbucks more than doubled its annual green power purchase to more than 573 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is enough green power to meet 55 percent of the organization's electricity use. Starbucks is buying renewable energy certificates from 3Degrees and Nexant. This demonstrates a proactive choice to switch away from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives. “We applaud Starbucks’ leadership in green power purchasing,” said Rick Albright, Director of EPA’s Office of Air, Waste & Toxics in Seattle. “Their actions are helping to protect air quality, green our power supply and create renewable energy jobs.” According to EPA, Starbucks’ green power purchase of more than 573 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of nearly 79,000 passenger vehicles per year or the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 50,000 average American homes annually. EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with nearly 1,300 partner organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Overall, EPA’s Green Power Partners are using nearly 18 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to avoiding the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of more than 1.5 million average American homes.
The Green Power Partnership works with a wide variety of leading organizations — from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal governments, and a growing number of colleges and universities.
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