SUST 5063 Module 4 Sustainability Action Plan Example

About $600,000 a Year Net and $734,000 in Equipment: An Action Plan for Seven Sustainability Goals

Student Name

American College of Education

SUST5063: Developing Sustainable Business Strategies

Module 4 Assignment

Instructor Name

September 25, 2028

Introduction

Seven goals came out of the third paper's materiality work: lower café turnover, wider benefit eligibility, more certified and direct trade coffee, published farmer prices, full composting of grounds, less landfill waste and a 40 percent absolute cut in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. Goals without actions, money and owners rarely move. This paper sets out the actions for each goal, estimates their costs and savings with stated assumptions, assigns owners and dates and checks that the actions are large enough to meet the targets.

Planning Principles

Four principles guide the plan. Every action names the goal it serves, so spending can be traced to results. Costs and savings are estimated with assumptions written out, so the owners can adjust them as real figures arrive. Actions that pay for themselves or reduce risk come first, following the shared value logic adopted in the first paper, but actions needed to meet the natural and societal cases are included even when they do not pay back. And each action has one owner, a start date and a check-in point, so progress can be reviewed quarterly.

Actions for Café Jobs

Three actions address turnover and benefits. First, adopt predictable scheduling: publish schedules two weeks ahead, give each barista a core set of regular shifts and allow shift swaps through an app, at about $18,000 a year for software and manager training. Second, lower the health insurance threshold from 30 to 25 hours a week, which would make about 45 more baristas eligible at an estimated employer cost of $7,500 each, or $337,500 a year. Third, add a $1 an hour wage step after six months, for about 110 baristas working 1,300 hours each, or $143,000 a year. The director of café operations and the people director own these actions.

Evidence for the Scheduling Action

Kesavan et al. (2022) tested responsible scheduling in a randomized field experiment in 28 Gap stores in the San Francisco and Chicago areas over nine months. The intervention made schedules more consistent, predictable and adequate and gave employees more control. Store productivity rose 5.1 percent, through a 3.3 percent increase in sales and a 1.8 percent decrease in labor, and better execution on the shop floor explained most of the improvement. Cafés share many features of retail stores, including variable demand and part-time staff, so similar effects are plausible, although a coffee bar is not a clothing store.

Offsetting Savings From Lower Turnover

The company estimates each barista departure costs about $3,500 in recruiting, training and lost productivity. With about 170 baristas, cutting turnover from 92 percent to the 60 percent target would mean roughly 54 fewer departures a year, saving about $190,400. The three café actions together cost about $498,500 a year, so their net cost would be about $308,000 before any productivity gains like those found at Gap. If productivity rose even 2 percent across café sales, the plan would come close to paying for itself, though the plan does not count on that.

Actions for Coffee Sourcing

To raise certified and direct trade purchases from 38 to 70 percent of volume by 2030, the green coffee buyer will add direct relationships with three cooperatives a year, paying a premium averaging $0.40 a pound above market for the additional 608,000 pounds, about $243,200 a year once fully phased in. Visits and verification cost about $30,000 a year. From 2027, the company will publish the price it paid per pound to each direct trade partner beside the market price at purchase, meeting the data goal. The premium can be partly recovered through a labeled single-origin line that customers already buy at higher prices.

Actions for Waste

Composting will expand from four cafés to all fourteen in 2027, adding a commercial collection contract at a net cost of about $16,000 a year after savings on landfill hauling; the operations manager owns it. For mixed waste, each café will install a small commercial dishwasher and stock reusable cups and plates for dine-in customers, at about $6,000 a café or $84,000 in total, and the roastery will begin recycling milk cartons through its hauler at about $6,000 a year. These actions target the grounds diversion goal and the reduction of landfill waste from 260 to 160 short tons.

Actions for Energy and Emissions

Two actions carry the emissions goal. In 2027 the roastery will replace its oldest roaster with a more efficient model that recovers heat from the afterburner, estimated at $650,000, expected to cut roastery gas use by about 3,400 million British thermal units a year, about 180 tonnes of emissions, and to save about $30,600 a year at $9 per unit. From 2027 the cafés will buy renewable electricity through the utility's green tariff or renewable energy certificates, at an estimated premium of $15 per megawatt-hour on about 1,710 megawatt-hours including new cafés, or $25,650 a year. Under the market-based Scope 2 method, this would remove most café electricity emissions (Sotos, 2015).

Checking the Emissions Target

The 2025 baseline was 1,746 tonnes, calculated with EPA's published factors (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2025). Renewable electricity for existing cafés removes about 625 tonnes under the market-based method, and the new roaster about 180, bringing emissions to roughly 940 tonnes. Four new cafés, also on renewable electricity, would add mainly gas for water heating, about 64 tonnes, for a 2030 total near 1,003 tonnes, just under the 1,050 target. The margin is thin. If the roaster saves less than expected, the company should add heat pump water heaters in cafés or electrify delivery vans, which the plan lists as reserve actions.

Budget and Timeline

When fully phased in, ongoing costs total about $819,350 a year and offsetting savings about $221,000, for a net cost near $598,000, about 1.9 percent of 2025 revenue. One-time equipment costs are $734,000, for the roaster and café dishwashers. The timeline runs as follows: scheduling and composting expansion in late 2026; the benefits threshold, roaster, renewable electricity, dishwashers and price publication in 2027; the wage step in 2028; and coffee sourcing rising each year to 70 percent by 2030. The chief operating officer reviews progress quarterly, and the owners review the full plan each year.

Risks

Three risks stand out. Coffee prices may rise sharply, making premiums harder to pay; the plan protects farmer premiums first and slows the volume increase if needed. Health insurance costs may rise faster than expected; the threshold change should be reviewed after one year with actual enrollment data. And the roaster replacement may be delayed or underperform, which is why reserve emissions actions are listed. Each risk has an owner and a trigger for review, so the plan can adjust without abandoning its goals.

Conclusion

The action plan links each of Front Range Roasters' seven goals to specific actions with owners, budgets and dates: predictable scheduling supported by randomized evidence, wider benefits and a wage step, direct trade premiums and price publication, full composting, reusable cups, a more efficient roaster and renewable electricity. Net ongoing cost is about $598,000 a year, roughly 1.9 percent of revenue, with $734,000 in equipment, and the emissions check shows the target is reachable with a thin margin. The final paper builds this into a sustainable business plan with monitoring tools.

References

Kesavan, S., Lambert, S. J., Williams, J. C., & Pendem, P. K. (2022). Doing well by doing good: Improving retail store performance with responsible scheduling practices at the Gap, Inc. Management Science, 68(11), 7818-7836. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4291

Sotos, M. (2015). GHG protocol scope 2 guidance: An amendment to the GHG protocol corporate standard. World Resources Institute. https://ghgprotocol.org/scope-2-guidance

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2025). GHG emission factors hub. https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/ghg-emission-factors-hub