After years of begging, pleading, and boycotting from activists, Starbucks finally made a more serious commitment to fair trade coffee by promising to double its fair trade certified coffee purchases. This makes Starbucks the world’s largest buyer of fair trade coffee.

I find it interesting that this sudden change of heart from Starbucks comes now that the company’s not doing as well financially. Perhaps Starbucks discovered that greenwashing wasn’t quite as profitable as actually going green. Here’s a little history of Starbucks’ clashes with fair trade activism:

>> Activists have been trying to push Starbucks since at least 1997. Bruce Herbert, Director of the Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment and prez of Thomson Herbert Company, said that in 1995, Starbucks “adopted a Code of Conduct in a move to hold coffee growers accountable for acceptable working conditions, wages and basic rights forworkers” — but then stayed mum on the results of this code.

>> In Oct. 2005, City Hippy and I launched the first Starbucks Challenge, taking Starbucks up on its offer to make a cup of fair trade coffee for any customer who asks for one. Soon Starbucks said it was experiencing “a breakdown in customer service.”

>> In Feb. 2007, Starbucks announced at a fair trade convergence it won’t commit even 5% to fair trade. The company continued, however, to green up its image by talking about its own CAFE practices — a confusing self-created “certification program” touted as being (but actually wasn’t) even greener and more fair than fair trade.

>> In Sept. 2007, the SacBee wrote a damning expose on Starbucks. SacBee’s Tom Knudson spent 3 weeks in Ethiopia and found that the very Ethiopian farmers Starbucks purports to benefit are in fact living in poverty, forced to settle for a little charity here and there instead of receiving a fair price for their coffee.

>> Starbucks’ purchase of fair trace certified coffee stayed at a stagnant 6% in 2007, though according to its self-defined criteria, Starbucks’ coffee purchases from “sustainable suppliers went up from 53% to 65%.

Starbucks’ sudden support of fair trade certification now reminds me of Whole Foods’ similar fair trade conversion back in 2007. The grocery chain had formerly rejected fair trade certification for its Allegro coffee line, but after a lot of consumer pressure coming from all sides, decided to reverse course, launching a new initiative called Whole Trade and enlisting the help of TransFair USA, the nonprofit that certifies fair trade products in the US.

Similarly, Starbucks’ about face comes with the launch of a new initiative dubbed Starbucks Shared Planet and a joint press release with TransFair USA. TFUSA’s so psyched it wrote an exuberant letter to Zarah, fair trade blogger at Change.com, further hyping the deal.

Who’s next?

Illustration by Jasmin Chua, Worsted Witch

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>> Starbucks quietly settled an antitrust lawsuit with Penny Stafford of Belvi Coffee and Tea Exchange in Bellevue, who’d sued Starbucks after she was allegedly locked out of the best office space in Bellevue and Seattle by Starbucks’ exclusive leasing agreements with landlords. Stafford argued Starbucks’ “insatiable and unchecked ambition” amounts to being a monopoly.

>> Starbucks’ purchase of fair trace certified coffee stayed at a stagnant 6% in 2007, though according to its self-defined criteria, Starbucks’ coffee purchases from “sustainable suppliers went up from 53% to 65%.

>> Earlier this week, 100 Starbucks employees got laid off, including 25 at its Seattle headquarters. “In February, the company cut about 600 positions, some through attrition and about 220 through layoffs. Many of those jobs, including about a third of the layoffs, were at headquarters.” (via Starbucks Gossip) Maybe indie coffee shops are starting to win out?

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Despite Starbucks’ big ads in the NY Times, the mermaid’s far from being a worker-friendly and ethical company, Starbucks makes token green gestures here and there — then spins the hell out of them via its PR machine.

Now, an investigative piece in the Sacramento Bee’s calling Starbucks on its bullshit. SacBee’s Tom Knudson spent 3 weeks in Ethiopia and found that the very Ethiopian farmers Starbucks purports to benefit are in fact living in poverty, forced to settle for a little charity here and there instead of receiving a fair price for their coffee.

Take the 3 footbridges Starbucks built in Ethiopia in 2004. By spending a mere $25,000 on these projects, Starbucks got to laud its forward-thinking charitable work in Ethiopia. But as Tadesse Meskela, a farmers co-op manager (and the star of the coffee film Black Gold) points out in the SacBee article: “If we are paid a (coffee) price which is decent, the people can make the bridge on their own…. We don’t have to be always beggars.”

Activists have been pushing Starbucks to become a better corporate citizen for years by making a more significant commitment to fair trade coffee — a move Starbucks continues to resist. Of course, Starbucks is always quick to point out that it pays $1.42 a pound for its coffee, 16 cents more than the fair trade minimum. What Starbucks doesn’t point out is that it’s comparing apples and oranges. Fair trade is about making sure the end coffee producer benefits, so the fair trade minimum price is strictly the amount that goes directly to the farmer co-op. Starbucks’ $1.42, on the otherhand, is the sum Starbucks pays to — someone. That someone’s usually a middleman in a long chain, not the coffee farmers.

In fact, Starbucks seems pretty hell bent on putting middlemen where none are needed; after all, paying the middleman saves Starbucks the costs of directly working with the farmers — while inflating this $1.42 figure Starbucks likes to put on its press releases. SacBee reports that in Chiapas, Mexico, Starbucks tried to get coffee farmers to sell to an exporter, instead of directly to Starbucks. The farmers cut off relations, saying that going through an exporter would drain their profits; Starbucks’ claim is that the farmers “were unable to manage it.”

Starbucks puts the same squeeze even on fair trade farms, as the NY Times exposed. Instead of paying the fair trade price to the Comon Yaj Noc Pic co-op in Mexico, Starbucks chose to forego the fair trade label, instead going through a middleman who paid the co-op just $1.23. Of course, if asked without specificity, Starbucks’ll state that the price they paid was $1.43 a pound and thus “better than fair trade,” without noting that that’s the sum they paid to the middleman, not the farmer.

Prices aside, Starbucks’ll often complain about fair trade certification itself, arguing that inspections for certification are shoddy or not thorough. Thus, the mermaid pushes its self-made CAFE Practices program as more comprehensive. What the SacBee investigation found, however, is that this CAFE system’s rather half-ass. No one from Starbucks or Scientific Certification Systems, the company Starbucks pays to oversee its CAFE program, visited an Ethiopian coffee farm that got CAFE certification, for example. An Africa-based company was hired to do the job — and apparently didn’t do it very well, because when SacBee started investigating, the inspector person got fired for doing a bad job.

What’s a coffee drinker with a latte habit to do? Stick to fair trade coffee. I’m working on putting together a US-wide list of coffee shops here. Among big chains, Noah’s Bagels has the fair trade Tribeca Blend brewing, while Tully’s and Dunkin’ Donuts use fair trade for their espresso drinks.

And if you’re stuck at Starbucks, try taking the Starbucks Challenge. Ask for a french-pressed cup of fair trade coffee, which baristas should provide for you at no extra charge per Starbucks’ company policy.

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Saw this on 20th and Santa Monica Blvd. in Santa Monica at the end of a run, and it amused me so much that I ran home, got my camera, and ran back to take a picture of it.

Seems Starbucks’ promotions for the latest eco-docu Arctic Tale, reviewed here, is kinda polluting our environment. This on top of the fact that as Jasmin notes, Starbucks’ paper carriers’re printed in China and assembled in Indonesia….

Of course, Starbucks isn’t solely to blame. Whoever jettisoned this cup on the sidewalk garden to — biodegrade? — is a bit of an idiot too. After all, the mermaid offers a dime off for bringing in your own cup, though a lot of customers don’t know this and fewer take advantage of it.

My challenge to Starbucks as a sponsor of Arctic Tale: Shave a dime off the printed menu prices, then ADD ON a dime for NOT bringing one’s own cup. This way, no-cup people’d still pay the full price while cup people get a dime off — but everyone’d start thinking about it.

Perhaps something to discuss at the “National Day of Discussion” Starbucks plans to hold in stores on August 15, 2007, “designed to engage local participants in a dialogue about how to modify their impact on the planet by making simple, everyday decisions.” The only problem would be that — people might actually start bringing their cups in more!

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I suck because I went to a screening of Arctic Tale over a month ago — then thought I’d write about it closer to launch date, then totally forgot.

This is the prob with screenings way before the launch date.

Anyway — Arctic Tale is sorta like March of the Penguins — perhaps because both films’re from National Geographic Films — except with a more environmental bent.

Narrated by Queen Latifah, Arctic Tale’s a documentary that follows Nanu, a lil polar bear perhaps even cuter than Knut, and Seela, an ugly-cute walrus, as they grow up in an arctic landscape. Their habitat’s getting increasingly warmer — making survival harder and harder.

You watch with bated breath as these cute mammals try to make it through winter after winter, despite the warmer weather that makes it difficult to hunt, harder to swim from berg to land, etc.

Do they make it? Do their sibs and relatives make it? You’ll have to watch to find out –

Unfortunately, the film really takes a sad U-turn for the worse at the end. As the credits roll, lil kids’re featured saying stuff similar to “Chage your lightbulb to a CFL, and save the polar bears!”

Dude — The polar bears’re fucked at this point. Yes, I heart Nanu — but even Nanu’s kid’s unlikely to live out its lifespan. Global warming’s picking up, and while lil changes are good, changing one lightbulb isn’t going to actually save the polar bears. Right now, it’s about realizing we’ve really really fucked up, we’ve pretty much ensured the decimation of the polar bear population, and we’ve gotta (yes, make personal changes too, but) push for some huge, governmental, national and international changes to prevent a mass extinction.

One ironic part of the film promotions: Starbucks is helping promote the eco-film. As Jasmin notes, “we would probably take them more seriously if Starbucks’ paper carriers weren’t printed in China and assembled in Indonesia. Another case of do as we say, not as we do?”

In fact, Starbucks’ so psyched ’bout this PR opp that they’re holding a “National Day of Discussion” on August 15, 2007: “these friendly and informative discussions are designed to engage local participants in a dialogue about how to modify their impact on the planet by making simple, everyday decisions.”

If you attend, note that you’re making these simple everyday decisions, and ask why Starbucks isn’t making these simple everyday decisions as a company.

On the upside, Starbucks’ sponsorship money’ll at least go toward promoting the film as well as some great orgs behind it, such as Earthwatch Institute and Conservation International.

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Democracy Now! put together a lil segment on the Ethiopian coffee licensing initiative — a segment that would’ve been more timely if it aired BEFORE Starbucks and the Ethiopian government announced they’d come to an agreement, but an interesting show nonetheless.

The show features a choir performance directed by the cheeky anti-corporation activist Rev. Billy (covered here), a rundown of the similarities between the plight of Starbucks baristas and the plight of Ethiopian coffee farmers by Starbucks worker and union activist Sarah Bender, plus some analysis by Dean Cycon of Dean’s Beans and Wondwossen Mezlekia of the blog Coffee Politics. Starbucks declined to participate.

Watch it here (128k stream), or read the transcript here. (via Coffee Politics)

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[image from abc. For those new to the Ethiopia coffee trademark issue, start here]

The Ethiopian government and Starbucks put out a joint release yesterday, announcing that they “agreed in principle to sign a licensing, distribution and marketing agreement that recognizes the importance and integrity of Ethiopia’s specialty coffee names.”

“Agreed in principle” sounds rather vague, but appears to be a significant change of heart on Starbucks’ part. Oxfam, which has been advising and backing Ethiopia on this trademark issue, says it’s optimistic. Once the agreement’s actually signed later this month, more details’ll come out –

Starbucks first opposed trademarking and fought hard against it. Earlier this year, Starbucks announced it no longer opposes trademarking (though it’s still not for it).

Now it seems Starbucks is more or less for it.

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[image from abc. For those new to the Ethiopia coffee trademark issue, start here]

I s’pose there’s no definitive way to tell what combo of reasons made Starbucks move from opposing Ethiopia’s effort to trademark its coffees to treading an allegedly neutral (but nowhere near pro-trademark) position. But I’m wondering if the threat of stockholder anger pushed the mermaid to change its stance.

According to a Wall Street Journal article (requires subscription) titled “BREWING CONFLICT: Ethiopia Battles Starbucks Over Rights to Coffee Names,” at least one ethically oriented financial company made a call to Starbucks about the issue.

Apparantly, Adam Kanzer, managing director at Domini Social Investments, which manages $1.8 billion, including shares of Starbucks, called Starbucks to “voice his concern that Starbucks’s stand is inconsistent with the company’s socially responsible heritage.” Adam’s quoted saying that Starbucks’ “immediate focus is on their profit margins,” while Starbucks’ response to the Ethiopian tradmark issue is “part of the real value of the company from an investment perspective.”

WSJ writes that “Starbucks executives, however, say that if Ethiopia wants to increase the value of its regional coffee names, the best way is to allow Starbucks to freely promote them in its nearly 13,000 stores around the world.” The problem with that argument? That strategy, so far, has led to Starbucks making $26 an lb on these coffees while Ethiopian farmers make a mere 75 cents a pound.

Of course, Starbucks won’t apologize for this inequity. WST quotes Dub Hay, a VP at Starbucks, saying: “We’re not really apologizing for the [profit] margins because what we do with that margin is open new stores…. The gift that Starbucks can bring to the coffee farmer is the guarantee of more business next year.”

Wait — Doesn’t some of that margin go toward paying the salaries and bonuses of people like Dub? And regardless, will Starbucks be opening even more stores next year? Yeah — thought so. What happens to the margins for Ethiopian farmers then?

Still, don’t underestimate Starbucks’ ability to skirt around the issue. Starbucks’ application to trademark the name “Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo” was a big part of the reason why the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office blocked Ethiopia’s application for “Sidamo” in 2005. Now, writes the WSJ, “Starbucks has yanked the name “Sidamo” off the coffee,” renaming it “Ethiopia Sun-Dried Shirkina.” Nice PR move.

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A series that runs every Tuesday, where I ask questions unrelated to the environment, fair trade, or local politics that I’ve been wondering about but haven’t been able to google the answers to. Any advice is appreciated.

“Annoyed with Starbucks and wouldn’t mind making a buck off of them?” is the first line of an email I got from the FON people. I’m guessing they found me via the Starbucks Challenge stuff.

So, are ya annoyed? If so, you might be interested in the FON strategy. The basic idea: If you have your own wifi and live in wifi distance from a Starbucks, you can opt to share your own free wifi with other FON users. In exchange, you get a buck for everyone who takes you up on your generousity. You yourself get free access to the entire FON network, as well as a free router.

Sez Alicia, the PR gal for FON: “Rather than paying the ridiculous $10 for the T-Mobile Wifi, a person who frequents Starbucks can pay $2 to access the FON wireless network.”

I was gonna try it as an experiment, but luckily, I have no Starbucks in wifi distance — Yay!

My question is, do you? And if so, are you tempted by the offer?

A while back, I was thinking ’bout sharing my wifi with my neighbors after I read the yellow chair stories — but was sorta discouraged from doing so by some of my techie readers. Perhaps you peeps might weigh in again, regarding your thoughts on FON?

Of course, if the LA wifi plan stays on schedule, this whole effort will be null in a couple years –

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You might wonder why Starbucks even goes to the United Students for Fair Trade convergences, considering how many fair trade activists are unhappy with Starbucks. Is the mermaid really interested in hearing activists’ thoughts? Well — At least one Starbucks employee got really, really miffed when Matt Earley of Just Coffee spoke his mind during one of the workshops.

Apparantly, some students — who work with Dean’s Beans, a 100% fair trade roaster that has opted against fair trade certification — “were asked by an audience member about why they would work with Dean Cycon when his company did not use TransFair USA certification.”

So of course Matt spoke up. He says that while “trying to address this in Dean’s absence, I used the shaky participation in the FT market of companies like Starbucks as an example of why Dean’s, Just Coffee and some other roasters did not want to be associated with TFUSA.”

Here’s what ensued, in Matt’s words:

This criticism did not please another audience member who happened to be a rep of SBUX’s “Sustainable Coffee” department [Siel's note: The Starbucks representative here is Aileen Carrell, manager of green coffee sustainability, which Matt found out later]. She shed some much needed light on some little known facts for us, which basically confirmed some of the things that we all suspected.

According to this person, SBUX does not think enough about how it markets its coffee. According to her, it had never occurred to them to “beat their chests” about the work that the do with farmers, although she felt they possibly should. This was very enlightening to those of us who have cynically felt that SBUX used fair trade strictly for marketing purposes. Shockingly, according to her they do not put much emphasis on marketing and advertising. Who knew?

After the SBUX rep introduced herself with these remarks, there was a bit of a feeding frenzy as students questioned her about some of her company’s practices. During the next ten minutes of candid Q&A, she confided in us that SBUX does not publish its contracts and other data because consumers find them to be “very confusing”. Apparently their lack of transparency is for our own good. She also admitted that SBUX is not interested in drastically increasing their FT coffee saying that “we will never be 100%”. This was not a huge surprise. However, her admission that they would not even commit to 5% “at this time” spoke volumes to their “committment” to the FT model.

Finally, she confided in us that not even all of the coffee that SBUX buys from co-ops is bought under FT terms, even if those co-ops are FLO certified. When challenged to commit to buying all co-op coffee under FT terms, she politely declined saying that it was “an interesting idea”, but that she would not commit to it.

With that she basically packed up her things and left the room before the workshop was over. She was promptly followed by a few students who were not satisfied with her responses and wanted to continue. The students willingness to engage her with hard and direct questions was really exciting. Two coffee producers who were present for the exchange seemed to especially enjoy it.

What was the original workshop about? It was “a workshop given by a group of students working with Dean’s Beans to facilitate a partnership between themselves, Dean’s, and the Oro Verde Cooperative in Peru.” Matt, being the critic cum optimist he is, brightly calls this event “one great example of the evolving critique of student-activists.”

Just Coffee’s a 100% fair trade committed roaster that opted against certification, which I wrote more about here. You can read about how I ran into a Starbucks gal at the last convergence — who’d been avoiding me cuz she didn’t want to answer questions about the Starbucks Challenge.

[Reports from the 2007 United Students for Fair Trade covergence from Matt Earley of Just Coffee. Jean of TransFair USA was also going to give us her viewpoint, but never made it to the convergence due to flight cancellations.]

Update, 2/23/07: Matt puts up more about the USFT convergence here.

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