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Shall we leave some room for jet foam in your coffee?

By Ed Goldman

About a month ago, the new CEO of Starbucks, fresh from the same job at Chipotle, said he’d commute to work by private jet. Apparently the Chipotle gig convinced him he was the beloved Warner Brothers ‘toon Speedy Gonzales whose exit line was always “¡Ariba! ¡Ariba! ¡Andale! ¡Andale!” which roughly translated means, “Let’s go! Let’s go! I’m losin’ a million bucks a minute talkin’ to you, Cabbie!”

Brian Niccol lives in Newport Beach, California, and his new job is in Seattle, Washington. Driving to work was obviously out of the question—they’re about 1,200 miles apart—so even if you hit all the green lights, that could still result in a morning commute of nearly 18 hours. (God forbid he also hits rush hour coming or going.)

As someone who dislikes driving even for 45 minutes—unless the destination is an emergency room or a French restaurant—I can sympathize with why Niccol would prefer to hop in a private jet. It could get him to the office in, say, just under three hours. But he’d still have to get to the airport and, once he alights, drive to the office, so I’d add another hour to the hop, just to be safe.

Niccol’s commute plan is causing some understandable angst from people who think of Starbucks as being eco-friendly. Airplane exhaust isn’t exactly green: a private jet burns about 5,000 gallons of fuel per hour, which is equal to what 400 cars do in the same time frame.

Ergo, Starbucks might consider positioning just 15 cars every 80 miles along the route from Newport Beach to Seattle.  Think Pony Express stops. Niccol could keep swapping out cars as he climbed the Pacific Coast, ever-northward.

I’m ready for my Rachel Carson Environmental Award. 

By the way, two other prestigious ecology awards are the Volvo Award and—I’m not making this up—the Goldman Award. I’m sure the latter has nothing to do with my family or me. On the other hand, since I’ve worked at home since 1984, a seminal year for George Orwell and me (I still think of him as my Big Brother), my daily commute has been a model of environmental stewardship. 

The only footprint I leave is when I step onto a throw rug right outside my shower stall, still wet and sometimes seriously powdered. (I call the little swatch by the door my talcum mat.) Some days I don’t leave my home at all, thereby causing none of the pollution my 2002 fossil-fueled car would certainly contribute to. (Despite the anachronism of it, I think of my elderly Mercedes as a hybrid: sometimes powered by gas, sometimes by tow trucks.)

In addition, I use only roll-on deodorant. And on the rare occasions I need to use an aerosol spray to halt the army of ants carrying my stereo out the back door, I make sure I bury the little carcasses in a compost pile I’ve been adding to for about seven years. I’d have been doing this for a longer time but I confused the words “compost” and “compote” and felt I didn’t eat enough fruit to make a significant difference in my garden.

CBS’s “Money Watch” first broke the story about Niccol’s commuter plans, jolting awake the Starbucks public relations team (actually, considering its employer, it probably required very little jolting). “While Brian will have an office in Southern California, his primary office and a majority of his time will be spent in our Seattle Support Center,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement. “When he is not traveling for work, he will be in our Seattle office at least three days a week, in alignment with our hybrid work policies. He will also have a home in Seattle.”