Starbucks said on Tuesday that it plans to double its spending with diverse-owned suppliers, to $1.5 billion, by 2030 as part of its ongoing effort to improve its track record on diversity.
The company spent nearly $800 million with diverse-owned suppliers in its most recent fiscal year.
The announcement comes a year after Starbucks vowed to improve its efforts on diversity by regularly reporting the makeup of its current workforce and by holding executives accountable for taking steps to improve the culture of inclusion throughout the company.
Dennis Brockman, Starbucks chief global inclusion and diversity officer, told employees in a letter this week that the company has the ability to “reframe and normalize diversity.”
“As a 14-year partner, I’ve prided myself in living Starbucks’ mission and values with a clear approach: real inclusion requires intent,” he wrote. “When we do that, we have the power to reframe and normalize diversity.”
Starbucks’ effort follows a similar commitment being made by McDonald’s to increase spending with diverse-owned suppliers—taking the companies’ own diversity-in-hiring efforts and expanding them to include the food manufacturers and distributors with which they work.
Starbucks said it has a supplier diversion and inclusion program, and that its spending supported more than 6,400 jobs last year and generated an economic impact of $1.2 billion.
The company said it would work with other organizations to develop and grow supplier diversity around the world as part of its commitment to increase spending. Starbucks said it is launching along with Arizona State University an “open-source toolkit on the fundamentals of how to run a successful business” for diverse-owned entrepreneurs.
The company also said it would allocate 15% of its advertising spending with media owned by historically marginalized groups or targeted at such audiences.
In addition, Starbucks released some data on its workforce. The company said 71% of its U.S. partner base was female and 48% was Black, Indigenous or People of Color, including 28.5% Hispanic or Latino and 7.7% Black.
The company said it wants at least 30% of employees at corporate levels, and 40% of workers in retail and manufacturing roles, to come from underrepresented groups by 2025 in the U.S.
Starbucks said it is tying the building of an inclusive and diverse team to executive compensation.
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