Being a CEO has its privileges. If you’re Starbucks’s incoming CEO, Brian Niccol, one big perk he will enjoy in his new job is not having to relocate from his home in Newport Beach, CA to the company’s Seattle headquarters. Instead, Niccol will be commuting 1,000 miles using the company’s corporate jet. It’s a commute that could have serious environmental consequences.
Business travel is a major contributor to carbon emissions. Frequent travelers, particularly those who fly business class, can generate up to five times more CO2 emissions than individuals who fly economy. When you factor in that corporate jets typically carry less than 20 passengers, the environmental impact becomes even more significant. According to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a flight on a business jet can be ten times as carbon-intensive as one taken on a commercial aircraft.
The amount of carbon emissions released as a result of Niccol’s decision to commute from California to Seattle depends on how often he flies. Starbucks has not disclosed the frequency of Niccol’s trips, or if he will always use the company jet. Based on estimates, if Niccol were to fly weekly between Newport Beach and Seattle in a 2007 Gulfstream G550, the aircraft registered to Starbucks, it could emit around 1,000 tons of CO2 annually. That’s the equivalent to the annual energy-use emissions of 118 homes which is more than 60 times the yearly emissions of the average American. It is also about 1,800 times the CO2 emitted by the average American airline passenger in 2019.
Dan Rutherford, ICCT’s senior director of research, emphasizes a set of guidelines to minimize emissions during air travel which is known as “fly like a NERD.” The acronym stands for flying on new aircraft, in economy class, on regular-sized planes, and on direct flights whenever possible. But Rutherford’s “rule zero” is even more straightforward: don’t commute by plane.
It appears many CEOs aren’t listening. For example, according to the Wall Street Journal, former Boeing CEO David Calhoun started working remotely before the pandemic. Rather than move to the company’s Arlington, VA headquarters, he traveled by private jet from his homes in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023, “Boeing’s fleet of private jets have made more than 400 trips to or from airports near Calhoun’s homes in the past three years.” In addition, a ProPublica investigation revealed that Nike executives, despite pledging climate action, have increased their private jet CO2 emissions by 20% since 2015.
In order to diminish the environmental impact on their corporate flights, Boeing has been using sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). However, according to Rutherford, this approach is outdated. The real progress, according to him, results from reducing emissions either by using more sustainable fuels or by cutting down the number of flights altogether.
This brings the issue of the lack of solid data on corporate jet usage. Without this data, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much these jets are contributing to climate change to create effective policies to mitigate their impact. This is why the ICCT is currently working on a global inventory of business jet travel. Their intention is to put real numbers behind corporate travel in order to discover just how big of a problem it is.
In the meantime, Congress is considering taxing business jet fuel or the flights themselves. The idea is that these taxes could discourage excessive jet use. However, without accurate data, it’s difficult to determine how effective this would be.
What does all this mean for Niccol and Starbucks? Niccol’s commute from California to Seattle is not just a convenience. It’s a reflection of a bigger issue. Corporate jets come at a high environmental cost. For a company like Starbucks in particular, which has made commitments to sustainability, it seems as if they are talking out of both sides of their mouths. How can Starbucks lead climate action when its CEO racks up emissions in a corporate jet? It’s a question that many would like to have answered.
