Job Purpose and Mission 

Starbucks wants to become the sustainability leader within the Coffee Shop Industry. This new and strategic role contributes to Starbucks’ success by ensuring proactive compliance with ESG (environmental, social, governance) legislation across the various legal entities within the EMEA region. By shepherding the business and its strategic partners through a rapidly evolving and often complex legal landscape, this role will grow and shape our corporate governance structure and will in turn contribute to the achievement of our global sustainability goals to halve our carbon, water, and waste footprints by 2030. 

Reporting into the Director of Sustainability & Social Impact, this role will be accountable for leading and managing a new regional subcommittee of cross-functional ESG leaders, coordinating nine diverse and multifaceted workstreams across Starbucks EMEA, its licensees, and markets, whilst at once ensuring a complete and effective link to the global corporate governance team in Seattle. The role will sit alongside regional counterparts in Finance, Supply Chain, Legal and Technology teams to create, validate, and implement an ESG strategy and roadmap for compliance across the nine workstreams in EMEA. 

In addition to leading this newly formed ESG matrix team and coordinating associated workstreams, this role will specifically exercise accountability for leading the organisational response to regulation on forest-risk commodities, the auditing of green claims, and compliance with waste and plastics legislation in conjunction with the sustainable packaging team. It will share responsibility with other functions for guiding the successful execution of supply chain audits on regulated chemicals and forced labour, among others, and will be key to the effective, timely, and compliant reporting of non-financial metrics. 

This role will operate across the full breadth and depth of sustainability strategy in EMEA, and whilst inherently cross-functional, it will be informed by and work especially closely with the legal team given its focus on legislation and compliance. It will bring to fruition key ESG workstreams in need of dedicated leadership and expertise, under the guidance of the director of sustainability & social impact, and it is imperative to the successful delivery of our 2030 global targets. 

Summary of Key Responsibilities  

Responsibilities and essential job functions include but are not limited to the following:  

• Lead and effectively manage ESG workstreams and implementation of initiatives to develop ESG capabilities and maintain Starbucks’s leadership position in line with senior leadership and external stakeholder expectations. 
• Establish and lead a regional subcommittee of cross-functional ESG leaders, and implement a supporting governance structure, pulling in dedicated program support from EMEA finance, tech, supply chain, legal and other departments as and where necessary. Communicate workstream status and progress to Board whilst flagging and addressing risk. 
• Refine the overarching ESG strategy and roadmap for regulatory compliance in EMEA, mapping out near-term legislative imperatives and long-term action required to deliver on Starbucks’s commitment to halve its global waste, water, and carbon footprint by 2030. Engage and lead local business units, licensees, and partners in pursuit of this shared objective. 
• Set and agree targets and KPI’s, monitor progress, and lead the EMEA Working Group engagement with the ESG Executive SteerCo in Seattle, as well as Asia Pacific ESG Subcommittee. Diligently represent the EMEA region and advocate effectively and commercially for the interests of its senior leadership team, licensees, suppliers, and partners.  
• Work in tandem with legal team to monitor ESG regulations and ensure compliance across regional business units, and with finance team to ensure non-financial reporting infrastructure is stood up across workstreams. Provide leadership, guidance, and support to the ESG Subcommittee across all fronts, tracking progress and seeking constant improvement. 
• Guide and support the supply chain function in verifying and auditing the extent of regulated chemicals and substances in Starbucks products, ensuring proactive compliance with legislation as it evolves. Partner with supply chain team to ensure effective and ongoing due diligence of supplier risk from forced labour, child labour, and human trafficking. 
• Lead global and regional supply chain team in efforts to audit and verify exposure to forest-risk commodities, putting in place remedial action where required. Work with sustainable packaging teams to ensure compliance in waste and plastics workstream, identifying single-use plastics, implementing circular systems, and modifying designs where required.  
• Direct efforts to assess green claims made by Starbucks, its partners, and licensees across the EMEA region, working with marketing team and external agencies to provide training on compliance requirements and thresholds. Ensure all green claims are accurate, verifiable, and defendable, utilising legal and agency support as necessary to ensure compliance. 
• Support the store development team to audit the energy efficiency of Starbucks’s facilities, ensuring energy performance of new projects and compliance with regulations on green buildings. Ensure effective environmental permitting of Starbucks roasting plants in Milan and Amsterdam, monitoring reporting requirements. 
• Harmonise ESG workstreams with strategic and project arms of the EMEA sustainability team, to ensure cross-pollination of thought leadership and efficiencies of output. Be a gatekeeper and champion of sustainability and social impact, advocating for best practice and embedding sustainability principles across EMEA and within business functions. 
• Leverage and effectively manage a global support network of professional service providers, including contract workers, consultants, law firms, and agencies, to effectively support and discharge cross-functional areas of responsibility and accountability. Ensure SOWs comprehensively drafted and roles and responsibilities aligned at regional and global level. 
• Manage budgets and forecasts for defined areas of responsibility, from requesting funds from Global teams to managing EMEA annual budgets to reconciliation of EMEA budgets on an on-going basis with finance to ensure that all initiatives stay on budget through duration of project timelines. Commission supporting work as necessary as budget owner. 

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience 

• Extensive experience directly relevant experience in senior project or program management in matrixed cross-functional teams, with relevant experience in corporate sustainability, environmental policy, or related field, with demonstrable commercial successes and output delivery. 

• Extensive knowledge of ESG principles, frameworks, standards, and trends, with good knowledge of ESG regulations and legislation across multiple jurisdictions (CSRD, CSDDD, CSDR, UK SDR, UN SDGs, TCFD, ISSB, etc.). 

• Bachelor's degree in Sustainability / Environmental Science / Business Management with ESG modules (post-graduate qualifications preferred). 

• Strong written and oral communication and presentation skills to articulate complex concepts and issues in a compelling, persuasive, fact-based manner; must at once be able to inform, influence, engage, and inspire. 

• Passion and desire to make sustainability and social impact integral to how Starbucks does business. 

• Experience managing in-person & virtual, cross-functional project teams to achieve high-stakes delivery goals. 

• Proactive risk identification, problem solving and analytical skills; familiarity with the fundamentals of brand building. 

• Ability to manage multiple priorities and respond resourcefully to new demands and challenges within a rapidly changing, ambiguous business landscape.