Starbucks found itself in hot water recently after The Sun discovered a policy in existence that flies in the face of the company’s claimed green credentials.

The newspaper revealed that in excess of 20 million litres of water are wasted by the global coffee giant every single day because it insists that staff leave a tap running all day for health and safety reasons (full story here ).

With environmental experts identifying water shortages as one of the major green issues facing our planet, it really is quite astonishing that a company claiming to be socially and environmentally responsible should have such a policy in place.

And what makes it even more astounding is that, according to PR Week, Starbucks was warned about the potential green PR disaster of this policy more than two years ago – but chose to ignore the warnings.

Instead, the policy remained in place across its worldwide chain of stores until its embarrassing and damaging exposé in The Sun earlier this month.

To avoid being tomorrow’s green PR disaster, you should check your company’s policies and procedures to ensure they stack up against any green claims you make about your business, products and services.

If you don’t, your business could also find itself in hot water.

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