The (Star) Buck Stops Here
The appointment of the new CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol, has raised more than a few eyebrows. Headline news in the New York Times.
Mr Niccol will be transported to Seattle from Newport Beach (1,000 miles) and back again up to three times a week in a corporate jet (to meet the Starbucks hybrid work policy which requires employees to attend the office three times a week). Potentially 6,000 miles each week. Assuming a four week holiday allowance, that could be in the region of 275,000 miles a year. More than ten flights around the world.
Does PR get any worse than this? As Ran Duchin, a finance professor at Boston College, put it “You’re buying a narrative. You’re not just buying the coffee”.
In the interest of disclosure this author must admit to commuting on Flybe between London and Cornwall weekly during several family summer holidays, back in the day.
A report published by the United Nations in 2021 showed that the world's wealthiest 1% of people produced double the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%. A staggering and damning statistic. Heel dragging by Rishi Sunak on climate change commitments earlier this year was disappointing for many but, unfortunately, he is not alone. According to Gemini, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the United States are just some the countries that have been criticized for their slow progress or lack of concrete actions.
Due partially to its size (population 1.3bn) but mainly due to its rapid industrialisation over the past four decades, China is the largest polluter followed by the United States, India, Russia and Japan.
In several Dailies published over the past few months we have noted the extraordinary efforts of China in encouraging and fostering (detractors – yes, there are a lot of them - would say dominating) the green revolution: solar, wind, EVS.
How about green, or clean, hydrogen? Hydrogen powered vehicles emit H2O and nothing else. The main problem is the amount of energy needed to separate/isolate the hydrogen atom. Sinopec (China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation) and more than a hundred of its Chinese peers have recently announced a strategy to speed up the building of a supply chain of renewable energy for green hydrogen and accelerate the nation’s transition to non-polluting fuels.
Seven of the ten largest clean hydrogen projects commissioned in 2023 were Chinese concerns. The other three were Ovako (Sweden), Lhyfe (France) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan). Sinopec’s project (planned capacity 20mn metric tons per annum) is more than six times larger than Ovako’s project, the second largest.
That is what you call scale and ambition. Donald – put a tariff on that!
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