 I'm Ann, I'm from Stand Out Earth. You are in the right place for the webcast on Starbucks. And I'm going to take everybody through just a couple logistics things and then I will introduce our speakers and we'll get underway. All right, and if you will wave, as your name is called, Jim Ace is the senior campaigner and actions manager at Stand Out Earth. Jim has worked on a range of social justice and environmental issues with organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, The Rutgers Society, SEIU, and Alliance for Democracy. He joined Stand in May 2012 to challenge the logging industry's greenwash of forest destruction. And Jim, thank you so much for being part of this today. Shiloh Britt worked as a Starbucks barista for five years residing in 2017. That same year, she graduated from Western Washington University's Huxley School of the Environment with a BA in environmental studies. Shiloh has been an avid volunteer with Stand Out Earth and has participated in over three actions with the organization. Shiloh also works as an elder caregiver and welcome Shiloh and thank you for all your time. Getting ready for today. Emily DeFrisco is the director of communications for the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance of more than 700 member groups working to stop plastic from polluting our environment. She has 13 years of experience in communications for nonprofit organizations, creating viral social media campaigns, Orange Gate, and Open Your Eyes with Jeff Bridges for Plastic Pollution Coalition, and on Toxic Chemicals and Children's Health for Healthy Child, Healthy World, and Environmental Working Group. And Emily, thank you so much for being here today. And Emily has warned us that a child of hers may walk past the screen. This could happen. Just want everyone to be prepared for that. We're kind of hoping it happens. It's not. And don't worry if it does. Thank you all for your prep and your time and your work. And I am going to bring up some questions to start us off and give me just a moment to do that. All right, so the first question that I wanna ask is how did Stan decide to reboot the Starbucks campaign? Tell us in just a couple minutes about the impact and what was the timing and the reasoning behind rebooting it? So Stan started out as a coalition actually about 20 years ago of Greenpeace Rainforest Action that worked in NRDC and the orientation was around protecting forests. And that coalition became forest ethics and then eventually Stan. So what drew us to Starbucks was the paper cup. And Starbucks uses over four billion, would it be, four billion cups a year that's over 8,000 cups a minute? Most of them end up in the landfill because at least in part of the cups, 100% polyethylene lining, it's plastic lining, most folks aren't aware of it. I wasn't aware of it. And so that's really at least initially what drew us to this issue in this company. But as you so, and there may have been others but as you so provided a lot of leadership on the Starbucks company, working on the cup issue for many years. And of course the company itself was very, was paying a lot of attention to the cup going way back to the 80s. In 2006, the company developed a 10% post-consumer recycled fiber cup. And then in 2008, the company made some commitments around recyclability of the cup and reusable cups. And so, we saw those commitments and some of its movement on cups as promising. And so we relaunched the campaign or relaunched our campaign to really follow up on their commitments to hold them accountable for those commitments they had made previously. Terrific. And just a note too, to encourage any of our panelists to come in with comments or questions for each other, additional feedback as we go. All right, great. And tell us about the key elements of the new campaign so far. Did you start out by reaching out directly to Starbucks? If so, what happened? Yeah, I'll take that one as well. So we always of course contact, engage the company and make many efforts to engage the company before we launch a campaign. And that was certainly true with Starbucks. We sent a letter, we didn't get a response. So we gave them an opportunity and an invitation really to do the right thing. The other thing I'll just say in terms of what we had initially conceived the campaign as is really a story-based campaign, we wanted to tell a story with it. And so we came up with this, several of our smart staff members came up with this idea of the Super Mermaid. We didn't want to sort of both shame Starbucks consumers, their customers or the company really. It wasn't sort of a boycott kind of a frame. So we wanted to keep it positive but encouraging and inviting and propositional. So really inviting the company to do the right thing. So the idea of the Super Mermaid, this powerful female superhero who was going to fight back against this evil Starbucks cut monster became the sort of story of the campaign. And that followed, we put out a comic book which we'll show you, actually a professionally designed comic book. And we launched the campaign at Comic Con, Emerald City Comic Con, it's the Comic Con here in Seattle. And we really followed that through much of the campaign we sort of followed that story and used the story to raise awareness of the campaign. Great, and why don't we transition to talking a little, going into some of the details of the ground campaign and how about if we start with a little bit of that, with a little video from that Comic Con launch, yeah? Okay, are you guys seeing and hearing that? Not yet, okay. Okay, so just a little taste of that launch. And then- I'll just jump in, and that was some of the three elements of the launch. Also, earlier that morning, we had gone to the Starbucks headquarters with one of the super mermaids and went up to the eighth floor, the executive floor with the president and CEO is, and delivered a petition. We had also taken a group of activists and traveled around to almost 20 stores throughout downtown Seattle that day, handing out the comic book and making a scene at a number of stores, or actually about 18 stores we hit that morning. So it was a fun day. Terrific. And then let's talk a little bit about the ground campaign and why it was important and what some of the really important elements of that were. And I'm gonna try to bring up some more images. And I think Shiloh, I think you're gonna take us through that. Yes, so as we were saying, the ground campaign has been all about taking the super mermaid and going to the storyline of the super mermaid, it's against this evil cup monster. And this all started in 2016 at that comic con and since then we've just been rolling with that. We've gone as far as to create a giant cup monster that the super mermaid goes into battle with. And as the campaign has worn on, the cup monster has had two different remodels. Stan Parker especially has been wonderful with that. And it takes a whole team. It's not just some organizers. It's not just Jim working on it. It takes an entire behind the scenes crew to do all this. And we've done multiple different actions. Like Jim was saying, we've done multiple tours of stores as we call them, where we'll go in just as Paris does and go to different stores handing out literature and explaining what is going in, what is going on. One of the things that we've done recently has been going to the Starbucks shareholders meetings, the AGM. And the AGM last year, we got so inside the heads of the executives that one of the executives, I believe it was the VP, said that she had nightmares about this giant cup monster that at the time was made of cardboard. And then in since then some of the larger things that we have done is we did a five day vigil where we parked outside of their headquarters in downtown Seattle, it's what December. And we're just there for five days with our 8,000 cup wall, our 12 foot tall cup. And we'll have different organizations come and help us out. And we'll talk about that a little bit later, but especially the people of plant for the planet, 350 Seattle student organizations. Again, it's not just one of us, it takes us all. And most recently at the Starbucks shareholders meeting in 2018, we were there as well. Terrific. Anything else? Shiloh, is there anything you wanna point out about the images that are coming up here or anything that we're missing? Just holler if there's one that I should bring back up. Okay. The two young women there with the petition of liberty, that was at this year's AGM in March. And these are two young women from Canada. They posted a petition on the change.org platform and got hundreds of thousands of people signing their petition and they were instrumental in helping near the end here in March. They actually met with the CEO, the new CEO Kevin Johnson. And then of course we're involved in this petition delivery and that's what this photo is of. Awesome. And then let me pull up the comic too and show that. And Mrs. Emily, I'll just add too with the Cup Monster. It was such a cool visual to have that Cup Monster on the ground with us in Seattle at the annual shareholders meeting. And for all of us who were taking video and doing Facebook Live to be able to point at that Cup Monster and say this Cup Monster was made from 8,000 single use disposable Starbucks cups that are not recycled. This is the amount that Starbucks goes through every minute. That was a very powerful visual both on the ground, organizing in person and organizing online as well. Great. And let me ask a question too about this so that the Cup Monster is in the comic and then also there's this physical Cup Monster at the actions. Which came first? Is the comic first? And then you knew that, did you always know that you were gonna build a giant Cup Monster and what was entailed in that? Sorry, the comic came around in 2016 and we did not have a Cup Monster until the AGM of March, 2017. And for that first time, it took us taking over a donated space by Doug Colchin, which was awesome. And a group of college students, myself, Jim, our families, I wanna say it took us about three weeks of very late nights, early mornings and multiple things, events happened during that time that there's setbacks. But that was our first version of the Cup Monster and that Cup Monster ended up, he was made out of cardboard so he ended up disintegrating at our last action last year at the five day vigil. So it took us about three or four weeks again this February to create another much sturdier Cup Monster. But then as Emily was bringing up, you know that the power of these pieces, these visual pieces, in terms of the executive suite and also public support, the way the public is reacting. And do you have any other things that you wanna say about that? About maybe what it was like when, as employees are coming to the HQ or people who didn't know about the campaign were walking by down the sidewalk and then the Cup Monster is out there or the Wall of Cups is out there. Specifically with the Cup Monster grounds, as we named him, is a huge attention getter. People will walk by activists in the streets handing out pamphlets. It's very difficult to walk by a 10 plus foot Cup Monster and not at least to show some interest in that. If people didn't know, the media especially was really interested in these props that we had out. And it wasn't just the Cup Monster, we had people dressed as baristaes to counter them. And- What was really fun is to watch people figured out. So we took the, remember, we took the Cup Monster on a parade and we were going down the middle of the street that both curves line with people and people would look at it at a point and they sort of, there'd be this funny look on their face. They wouldn't understand. And then this aha moment would hit them. It was really fun to watch the sort of recognition and they would get it. Oh, right, they're talking about wasteful cups, single use cups. And so that was really fun. I'll also say as I think back, our initial theory was that we go to Starbucks stores but also places where Starbucks would care about their name being, are their brand being stained. So we went to Starbucks sponsored events, that sort of thing in Seattle. And not, we eventually sort of continued doing that but brawned it and obviously hit them at the headquarters as well. But really it was sort of about experimenting and trying to figure out sort of poking them in different places and seeing where they would react. And it turns out that the cup monster is where we got our reaction. So when we figured out that we actually had something that they really didn't like and they didn't want to see out in the world, that's when we knew that we had something that worked. Okay, great. And I'm gonna direct this next one at Emily kind of getting into the power of the online engagement. And I feel like there's really interesting interactions between the online and the offline too. So I'll invite everybody to come in about that. But let's bring Emily up next to talk about how you leveraged, how the campaign leveraged online engagement and anything that you wanna add about kind of the synergy between online and offline. Yeah, it was a wonderful synergy between the two. And we had 20 different organizations in our Starbucks coalition. We called it building off the great work that Stand and others have done with Starbucks. And we had two great hashtags, Break Free from Plastic, which is an umbrella movement that many of us are a part of. And also hashtag Starbucks Trash, which was just really compelling for people. We asked people to photograph Starbucks Trash in their neighborhood and share it on social media with that hashtag, which went over really well because who hasn't seen Starbucks Trash in their neighborhood? It's everywhere. Also just using the power of an online petition tool that was super easy to sign. You could sign it from wherever you live in the entire world. And that petition was delivered on the ground in Seattle. So we made it just really accessible for everyone, really easy to use. And the campaign really resonated with people. And I think one of the reasons that it really resonated with people is because many people don't know, like Jim mentioned that Starbucks straws, lids, cups are not recycled. The majority of them are ending up in the landfill or our oceans and waterways. Ocean plastic pollution and plastic pollution in general is this growing, growing topic of concern and a growing crisis really. So we were able to kind of use all of those things toward an advantage to build this really cool digital campaign in partnership with these other organizations. And what you're seeing here on your screen now, thank you Ann, is the main petition page which as you can see has over a million signatures was super easy to sign, super easy to share and really cool. So we were really happy that we got over a million signatures. Okay, great. And Emily, should I pull up that other graphic? Another thing that we used to kind of leverage the digital organizing is Thunderclap. So we used Thunderclap and had a bunch of different organizations in our coalition and even organizations outside of the coalition sign on to kind of release the same tweet at one time. And that Thunderclap as you can see from this photograph here, this image reached 6.4 million people which you're really happy with. And as you can see, you can see a green straw right there in the ocean. And if that doesn't make you feel like that's a problem, I don't know what will. I mean, that's just ready to be eaten by a poor little marine animal. So we were really happy that our Thunderclap reached so many people and that so many people kind of took up the call to sign the petition and put the pressure on Starbucks to change. Okay, great. So let's talk a little bit about how the coalition worked together. And how did the coalition come together and what makes it work well? So just starting off with who's in the coalition and how did the different organizations first approach each other? And this could be our only way to start. Just a tip my hat to Ross Hammond, former colleague who really helped I think sort of get the ball rolling and starting to talk to the plastics folks. And I think that started in the fall of last year and by January of 2018, we were in full swing plan. So that's my recollection. It all happened so fast. Emily, what was your thoughts? Yeah, that's absolutely right. I think Stan began the work and then these 20 different organizations kind of came together. We had weekly calls and we kind of aligned our messaging, break free from plastic again, helped with kind of our messaging alignment. And yeah, we worked really well together. And it was really cool because Starbucks has a long history of ignoring one tiny nonprofit organization, right? But they can't ignore the power of 20 working together with all of our networks and all of our communities standing up together and demanding change. So it was really, really powerful and a great way to put the pressure on them. Great, and what just happened during the campaign that has been surprising? And I should say, I have just a couple more questions and then we're gonna open it up and we are getting some via Facebook Live and some via the Zoom platform and please tuck your questions in there. We welcome them. So just a couple more from me and then we'll get to them from the audience. So what's been surprising in the kitchen and how have you leveraged it to benefit when possible? I'll start. One of them was something we couldn't have planned for and that was over in the UK, a show on BBC called War on Waste. Celebrity named Hugh, his last name is hyphenated and always escapes me, but he did a great show on paper cups and talked about Starbucks and that was huge and that led the UK Parliament to consider what they called what was dubbed a latte levier that is a fee on single use cups. And so that really had a significant effect certainly over in Europe and in particular the UK, but obviously companies over here in the US and including Starbucks were paying attention to that. So that was huge. Emily, do you wanna add anything to that? Yeah, I would say we really had a coordinated effort with many rungs of the ladder, if you will, with the digital, the online petition, beautiful social media posts created by Stand and Plastic Pollution Coalition and others, really shareable content, asks to turn out in person in Seattle on the ground and make your voice heard. And then another one of the groups in our organization Upstream, they worked very hard on this toolkit where anyone in the world could use these resources to print a letter, a dear manager letter and bring it to the Starbucks in their community and show up in their community and demand change. And I'm just looking for the numbers here. Those letters were delivered at over 40 Starbucks locations in 60 countries. No, six countries, six countries. So I think and that was all the day of the AGM. So it was a very really well coordinated effort that I think really put the pressure on Starbucks. You're muted, Anne. That's my favorite trick, or I forget to unmute myself. Let's talk about the win a little bit. What did Starbucks commit to? And I know we have some questions coming in about that too. What did Starbucks commit to? And when we hold them to this win, what will the impact be? And I think, we haven't heard from Shila for a little bit. Let's kick that off with Shila. So April 2017, right after their shareholders meeting AGM, they said that they were going to double the percentage of recycled fiber, double the percentage of reusable cups and double the number of communities that accepted cups for recycling. The day before the Starbucks AGM, this year, March 2018, 10, they just came out with a $10 million initiative to develop a recyclable and compostable cup. When they live up to this promise, this impact is going to be huge. It's going to be felt all around the world, not just here in the U.S., because Starbucks is the biggest coffee company and developing a new technology will be a game changer. Everyone will go where Starbucks has led them. Okay, great. And Shila, will you just run us through those, just run us through, because I know people are listening hard, just a couple, run back through what they committed to. This spring. Double the percentage of recyclable fiber, double the percentage of reusable cups, double the number of communities that accept cups for recycling. And they have created a $10 million initiative to develop a recyclable and compostable cup. Okay, terrific. And we'll come back to those in just a minute. What are some of the key lessons learned so far from this campaign? Am I going to lead off? Sure, I think we learned a lot. I think we had a lot of great success. And I think we learned that our voices are stronger together. We need to work together to achieve these big goals. And that was just so beautifully demonstrated with this campaign. So we're thrilled to have been able to partner with the 20 different organizations in order to accomplish this. And we're not done. I mean, we're still gonna be holding Starbucks to their promise and more in the coming weeks and months. Yeah, I would say a key lesson is flexibility or agility might be a better word for it. And that is being willing to shift messaging and strategy. And it's really almost theory of change, really, because shifting to the plastic pollution issue and really emphasizing the plastic piece was critical. So that was a really big piece. Frankly, the recyclable cups and post-consumer cycle content just wasn't landing. It just wasn't getting the traction that we needed it to. The only other thing I would just add in addition to that is just getting into the head of the employees was really key. We felt like by having a regular, persistent presence, both at their headquarters and stores and just that sort of regular drip was, I think, had an impact leading up to this sort of crescendo at the AGM. Terrific, and in terms of continuing to hold Starbucks feet to the fire, what about the commitments and these lessons learned? How is that shaping the campaign going forward and what are the next steps? Yeah, I think, oh, you can go ahead, Jim. I was just gonna say, we would love to see Starbucks completely get rid of their not-so-green straws as we call them. It's awesome that they've made this commitment to create this recyclable and compostable cup, which Jim will talk about is gonna be a challenge. But we also need to get rid of that other plastic that they serve all the time, every minute of every day. And we need them to increase their use of re-usables like they committed to do. We need them to actually really put some weight behind that because in the long-term, that's gonna be what's best for the environment. Yeah, that's right. And good news that they have committed in the UK to eliminate straws, the city of Vancouver just banned straws in Vancouver. That takes effect in 2019. So plastic straws, we're okay with straws. Sorry, plastic straws. So, I think plastic straws are on the way out. It's only a matter of time and there's some more pushing to do to get that done. And then of course, there's lots more plastic to get banned as well. Obviously reducing, we always start with reduction and re-usables. And so there's, I think there's a lot of work to be done there as well. And Stance Focus in particular will be focused on continued work in the sector, in the retail coffee and quick serve restaurant sector and really emphasizing in terms of the paper cup, a reduced plastic and universally recyclable cup. And that technology exists now. And so we're gonna continue to push forward on companies really starting to switching over to that technology, that product. So, yeah, more work to do and certainly keep an eye on Starbucks and making sure that they keep their promise. They have made promises before and so really holding them accountable for their commitments will be work that we'll all be doing together as well. Okay, terrific. So we're gonna transition to questions from the audience. And I have one from Facebook Live that I'll say in a moment, an anonymous one that I'll say in a moment to kind of kick us off. And while we do that, I'm gonna try, I think we have a moment here. I think we have enough time to do this and it's always fun to try to make it so we can see and hear the people who are not anonymous who submitted their question or comments, including Ross Hammond who was invoked just a little bit ago. I'm kind of hoping that Ross will make a video appearance here, that'd be fun. So the people who I will be trying to make visible are Kristen and Judy and Ross. And while I kind of load that up, I'm gonna tell you what our other questions are. So we have a Facebook Live question from Rohit. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. About, was there a bring your own cup element to this campaign at Starbucks? So I'm gonna give you all that one. Was there a bring your own cup campaign and our anonymous question is wanting to hear more about the role of baristas or former baristas like Shiloh in the campaign and if store level workers played an important part. So bring your own cup, roll of store level workers and I'll let you all start on that while I load these folks up. I'll take the first one. Yeah, so we launched, with Stan launched its campaign. We had three demands. One is around the recycled content in the cup. Two is around the recyclable cup. And three, and really kind of where we need to start is reducing cup consumption. So by that, we mean people bringing in their own reusable cup. And so that is, and when the plastics coalition came together and the coalition came around together around Starbucks that was certainly a focus too and was included in the revised demand sets set as well. So yes, it definitely was on the demands and it was a part of the campaign and Starbucks addressed it by committing to double the number of beverages that are served in reusable cups. So we'll be holding them accountable to that. It's not where we'd like it to be. Their initial commitment was 25%. Back in 2008, they committed to serve 25% of their beverages in reusable cups by 2015. And then they've reduced their commitment down to 5% and they've never gotten above two. So there's lots of room to grow there but getting them moving in that direction is critical. So yes, and more work to do. Great. I can pick the second part of that. So baristas played a huge part, Starbucks baristas and baristas and other coffee shops because they helped propel this message. They told their customers and that was a huge risk for them. But most importantly, they were on this online platform. We had online petitions that they signed and we went through an organization which I don't know if I can mention, so I won't. And they realized there was a problem, stepped up to the challenge and then brought it to the attention of their managers of their district managers. So the company was well aware of it and that was a huge risk for them because especially at the time when I was there, the company was very much denying what was going on and saying this isn't a problem but they went out and took that risk despite what the company was saying and I commend them hugely for that. And more than anything, they were willing to talk and to listen to what we had to say despite what their employer had been telling them. So the Starbucks baristas and other baristas were a huge part of the service. Yeah, and I'll just add it was an invaluable resource having Shiloh and others kind of tell us what's really happening in Starbucks stores and the lack of recycling of even recyclable items was quite shocking and another great moment of the campaign was a film that I think a barista had taken of showing that in a Starbucks store that the recycling bin and the trash bin were actually the same bin. So that was a cool moment for all of our followers to say, wow, okay, there's some obfuscation here they're not being truthful. Terrific. All right, and I see some of our folks coming in to give their questions and comments. Ross, let's start with you. You are muted right now. And let me see if I can. Hi. Hey, great. You had a comment, Ross, and I'd love to have you share it and get a little dialogue going on that. And dad, nice to see you all. Nice to see you. This is definitely one of the funner campaigns I've worked on in a long time. So I just want to highlight, I think there were three other things that I might have mentioned. One, I think having the as you sell resolution on the official agenda, you know, I know there's lots of sort of debate about whether shareholder activism is really that useful and maybe you should just sell your shares. But I think in the case of Starbucks, the fact that there was this target, the resolution went in in the fall, I think around the end of September, it was approved or sort of Starbucks basically let it go in early January. So we knew that on the official agenda, there was going to be a discussion about recycling and reusability. And so the, even though the resolution itself really called for Starbucks basically do more study and see how it could meet its commitments. That was sort of like on the official agenda, we knew we had a placeholder. Secondly was the Denver Post article. We, Jim and particularly worked very along with the reporter there who really, you know, and again, it's not always you get these sort of ends, but when you, if you're persistent, you know, I believe the occasional, that you will eventually find that person, that reporter who's willing to both listen to you and then is curious enough to start doing their own digging. And so what we got about two weeks out was a front page Denver Post article, like the Starbucks cup that you think is gonna be recyclable is actually just going into the landfill. Again, it's sort of, you know, sometimes with campaigning, you just, you have to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over. And the Starbucks cups are not recyclable is like one of those basic foundational facts for the campaign, which I think at times we sort of forgot like, okay, we all know that, but like it's the saying, right? You say, keep saying something over and over and over. And when you're finally sick of hearing it, that's when it starts to sink in with people. So I think having that, that piece was really important in terms of pushing Starbucks in those last months like that, the impending dissent upon the shareholders meeting of all these protestors, the cup monster, the delivery of the letters, like we just sort of, we just have that date. That's also why shareholder meetings are great, are great sort of organizing places. And then just on the involvement of the baristas, yeah, it's as you so, it's a great online organization that works with workers in unorganized industries and basically allows employees to start their own petitions. And so the Starbucks recyclable cup petition got, you know, I think it got a couple of thousand baristas to sign it. So again, for the company to know that this isn't just, you know, environmentalists, these are actually their own employees who really care about this. And then I guess finally just, you know, we didn't have a lot of meetings with the staff. And when we did, they were, they were a little tense, but I do think that those meetings helped crystallize for some of those top people, the fact that we were not going to go away and they had to tell their bosses that something needed to be done because we weren't just going to drift away. So that's kind of what I have to contribute. Awesome, Russ. Anything that people want to riff on from that? Oh, and I see Tim Newman is actually on the call from coworker. Yeah, I'll just, I'm going to jump on that. Tim, thank you for joining us. Just a couple other quick acknowledgements. And I'll start with just as you so and just to make sure folks know that, so as you so wasn't a part of the coalition, as you so is doing their own thing and, you know, just right time, right place and glad that all lined up. So big thanks to as you so for its leadership and just to clarify, those are two sort of separate efforts. And of course, the Starbucks Coalition that came together and the groups around the country, the people around the world that took action. I'll just mention Kristen Walsh from Plant for the Planet and her family and the Plant for the Planet crew in Seattle were amazing. 350 Seattle, lots of folks from 350 Seattle participated in the actions for the last couple of years. Students for those players, Sailor C here in Bellingham and Doug Tolson of the Sailor C Marine Sanctuary provided space for us to build the props. Stan Parker, Debbie Cantrell, two activists here in Bellingham were put in many, many, many hours working on them. Gene Bergman, a friend in New York City that worked hard behind the scenes. Students for environmental awareness and environmental group at Rutgers University did a number of actions at Starbucks stores and around their campus. So Ross and Vanessa and many, many others, you know, it took a lot of us, a lot of heavy lifting from folks around the world to make this happen. So huge appreciation to you all for being a part of it. Great. Okay, we have a few more questions coming in. I wanna let Kristen, Azure and Theo jump in and we should be able to hear you now. Thanks for joining. So my question was, I heard in the news because it was like really big that Starbucks did commit $10 million to try to make a recyclable and compostable cup. But like, do we know if they have made any success with that or like still in the process or have they, do we know the progress on that? Hey boys, great to see you. Hi, Kristen. Yay. I am such a huge fan of your family. You're amazing. Anyway, hey guys. Yeah, so sorry, the short answer is what we understand is that Starbucks has written a check to a group called the closed-loop partners that work on sort of systems level thinking and trying to solve these problems and recycling is very complicated. And so closed-loop partners has some expertise in trying to figure out those systems and how to make them better. So we know that that step has occurred and that closed-loop partners is developing the criteria for what that cup would look like and they're gonna issue what's called a request for proposals and basically soliciting ideas from the private sector on what technology might work. And apparently they've gotten hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs, companies who have said, hey, we have the solution. So at least so far, there seems to be fairly significant interest and a lot of ideas out there on what might work. And so we are cautiously optimistic that out of this $10 million initiative that a new groundbreaking game-changing technology will come out of it. And that's what I'm excited about. Does that answer your question? Why we can't just give Starbucks the better cup that we were handing out to people saying, look, this already exists. And what kind of cup have them? Why can't they just use that? Sure. The technology that we were handing out is a technology that is reduced plastic and is universally recyclable. But what it is not is compostable. And so what Starbucks has committed to do, what they've promised to develop is a technology that is both recyclable and compostable, which doesn't exist in the world right now. So that would be great to have because consumers, most of us look at a paper cup and we're not gonna know whether it goes in the compost bin or the recycling bin. So having a technology that is not contamination, regardless of which bin it goes in, would be fantastic. The technology doesn't exist yet as far as we know. And so that's why we hope that, that's why we look forward to Starbucks delivering on that promise when they deliver it. In the meantime, there is existing technology on the market now that is both uses less plastic and is universally recyclable. And again, that exists now. And so that's why we're going to Starbucks competitors, other companies in the again, retail coffee and pizza restaurant sector and saying, hey, look, while we wait for Starbucks to develop this unicorn horn, here's something you can do right now. And so does that answer your question? Yeah. And I would just say too, I have kids that are a little bit younger than you guys and maybe you already do this, but we bring our own cups when we go places like Starbucks. And even though Starbucks doesn't advertise it, they do have a discount if you bring your own cup. And we need them to incentivize bringing your own cup so you can refuse single use plastic for the earth. So that's just a reminder to everyone listening, bring your own cup whenever you can and it will make a huge difference. So one last question. I know the grounds kind of got destroyed. We were there when grounds died. So now there's a cupzilla. I was just asking like, what is the action that cupzilla is gonna participate in? Is he like it is? What happens to cupzilla? Yeah, what happens to cupzilla? Cupzilla is in a garage in Bellingham right now waiting to come back out. So we should circle up and talk about what action we're gonna do with cupzilla. Cupzilla is at our disposal. All right, awesome. I wanna thank our first set of folks for your questions. And I'm gonna close down the webcam so the people who've already gotten asked questions I'm gonna bring in a couple more questions while I do that. One from Judy who has a question but didn't wanna come on screen. And Judy's question is, how does having a recyclable cup actually work as China stops accepting our recycling? So how is the global recycling crisis affecting all of this? Yeah, no great question. And certainly for West Coast cities, the shifts in the threat and trade war that Trump has instigated with China it has huge implications for cities along the West Coast especially. But that's why we're so focused on developing, getting companies to switch over to a cup that's universally recyclable. Now, we would definitely start with, look it's all about reusable and reduced consumption. So we have to start there. But to the extent that we're gonna have paper cups in the world, they should be recyclable. And so really the issue now is because of that 100% polyethylene plastic lining it makes the cups harder to recycle and therefore less valuable. The paper mills don't want them because they clog their filters. And so there's really no market for them. So the idea is we have to change the economics of recycling, make it more profitable and incentivize the private sector to invest and recycle what is otherwise a valuable commodity. So our theory of change is if we can change the cup lining how the cup is made, what it's lined with so that the cups is more valuable to recycle that will change the economics and change the system. And I would just add that, that's great points Jim. I think that we need to hold Starbucks even though they came out with this commitment and it's a big win, we need to hold them accountable like we've said before to actually increasing reusables because that will make the difference. We hold Starbucks to blame for our global to go culture. Nobody really expected that you get your coffee to go before Starbucks really pioneered that. So we hold them accountable for all the Starbucks trash and we need them to really in addition to everything else they're doing promote reusable cups in their stores. And I'd like to add to that. It's worth noting that Starbucks in the last couple months has come out with a reusable $3 iced venti cup where before they just had the $2 reusable hot cup now they have an iced one. So I'd like to think we had an impact on that decision. All right, we have three more questions. I think they're all anonymous and I'm gonna run them down and I'm also gonna bring up contact information for the campaign as our speakers answer. So one of them is to talk a little bit about what is involved in the implementation that is necessary. What's happening there in terms of monitoring what's happening with the Starbucks process and also the different commitments for different amounts of percentages that they're promising. And there's also a question, or maybe there are just two, was your campaign involved in the Starbucks experiment in charging for to-go cups in London? Is this something that you're going to push for them to do more? So were these folks, were you all involved in that work in London? And then also what are the implementation steps going forward? So yeah, so Starbucks volunteers. So around the time that the UK Parliament, a committee in the UK Parliament was considering the latte levy, that's when, and this is a pretty consistent pattern that we've seen, right? As soon as government starts to step up to take action, the companies involved and the sector involved will say, oh no, you don't have to pass legislation, we'll take care of it voluntarily. And that's exactly what happened in the UK. So when the UK Parliament was starting to talk about a latte levy, Starbucks said, oh, you don't have to pass a law, we'll voluntarily start charging for single use cups. And so that's what they've been doing. And the promising thing there is that they've seen a, I think it was a, I haven't looked at it in a minute, I think it was 150% increase in a number of reusable. So the takeaway there, the lesson is, and that's what we've been saying from the beginning, is it's really charging people a fee. I mean, giving people a reward for bringing their own cup is great. And a positive incentive is fantastic, but it's really a negative incentive that really helps motivate people like me, along with a customer prompt at the point of purchase. So what we understand is that it's a fee combined with asking people, what kind of cup would you like? Makes people really think twice and motivate them to bring their own mug. So that's the direction that we need to go in as far as that goes. And it seems to be moving in the right direction in the UK, but we have our work cut out for us here in the US. That's really, we need that to start happening here in the US in order, and Starbucks needs to do it in order to meet their goal, their new goal of 5%, they're gonna have to start doing that here in North America. And in China where they're growing by leaps and bounds. And anyone else wanna weigh in on that and who else would like to talk a little bit more about implementation? Emily, you wanna lead off on the plastic side? Pardon? Would you like to lead off on the plastic side and next steps there? Yeah, so next steps with plastics and Starbucks. Yeah, I mean, as we've mentioned, we're just gonna keep the pressure on. We need to see Starbucks really commit to reducing the amount of single use plastic they use. Our oceans are at a tipping point, which is some language that we used in the campaign a lot. If you've read any of the recent statistics on ocean plastic pollution or plastic pollution in general and our landfills and our waterways, it's just incredibly sobering. And each of us needs to do what we can do to limit our use of plastic, refuse single use plastic and also just demand better. So we're gonna be demanding that Starbucks, stop serving so much single use plastic. The straws are cleaned up on beaches and waterways. They are ingested by marine life. They're really incredibly harmful. And eventually, even if they're not ingested by marine life, they will break apart into toxic little particles called microplastics. So we will be in continued conversation with Starbucks, asking them to stop using so much single use plastic and polluting the planet. Yeah, and from the stand side, we launched our campaign with three demands and Starbucks has addressed all three of them with these commitments that don't go far enough. But so I think in terms of our work with, particularly with Starbucks, is to hold them accountable for those commitments, starting with reduction and including, we're looking forward to their doubling the amount of recycled fiber in their paper cups. And we're certainly looking forward to their initiative on the recyclable and compostable cup. So just continue to engage with the company and continue to build pressure to hold them accountable for their promises. Absolutely, and if you're listening to this webinar and you signed the petition and you showed up on the ground, you showed up at a Starbucks near you, thank you so much for joining us in this awesome campaign. And if you're listening and you're from Starbucks, you should be afraid. Right on. So just note on the screen, info if you've got a question for Jim or Shiloh, you can send it to Jimace at stand.earth and keep watching what's going on at the bettercup.earth website for Emily. Emily at plasticpollutioncollection.org and the website is plasticpollutioncollection.org. Stay involved. And I want to thank our presenters, Jim, Shiloh and Emily so much for your time today and all of your work on this. I also want to thank some folks behind the scenes, Trista, Hallie, Kirsten and Ginny for helping make all of this happen today. And everyone who requested the recording, you will get emails, the link to a copy of it. And we hope you'll share it with other people who are interested. And thanks again, everybody for joining us today. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming.