Business & Innovation...

You want your barista’s latte spoon clean, sure, but recent news reports accuse Starbucks of wasting as many as six million gallons of water each day. All that water runs down the tap because of a company policy that requires stores to keep water running in the sink constantly, so germs don’t build up.

As Eat.Drink.Better. discussed, all that water would be enough to provide water for two million people in Namibia. In fact, “a single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions.”

And, as Eat.Drink.Better. points out, this isn’t just about wasting water, but about corporate responsibility—Starbucks owns Ethos Water that donates money to help water programs around the world and Starbucks itself touts environmentalism as a company policy.

If you want to avoid Starbucks next time you need a cup of coffee, try CoffeeShopFind.com or IndieCoffeeShops.com to find and add your own.

Photo from Big Marketing Blog.