Starbucks fair trade commitment feels like window cleaning, not window dressing.

by Tim Kitchin

10:15 on 26/11/08

Starbucks will only sell fair trade coffee from now on…increasing its UK fairtrade coffee bean buying by 1600% and becoming the world’s leading buyer of fairtrade.

Good for them and I will personally consolidate my coffee buying (1-2 espressos and 4-5 cappuccinos a day).

In the wake of this announcement it’s fair to ask questions about the availability, liquidity of fair trade supply, and also to examine the real world impact of this supply. It’s also fair to question why this is not a blanket, world-wide commitment. But on balance this has to be very good news indeed. Howard Shultz is back at the helm and driving with conviction.

Firstly it send a strong signal to anyone considering retrenching on CSR, that ethical clarity and conviction remain a source of competitive advantage – especially in a downturn.

Secondly it shows the real power of CSR comes when it is embraced as committed corporate marketing – aligning organisational commitments to real stakeholder needs.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it builds on a strong and committed legacy of market-leading commitments and fair(er) practices than its unscrutinised rivals.

The fact is that ethical considerations in purchasing are alive and well, but our consciences will only be activated by companies that show they mean it – window cleaning; not window dressing. Starbucks next challenge will be to drive real customer engagement around their commitment through effective social communication.

3 Comments

1. Peter Parkes | 26th November 2008 at 11:39 am

For Fairtrade to work in the long term, it needs to be a seen/constructed mechanism for increasing product quality (and thus sustaining the inflated prices). Simply paying more for rubbish won’t sufficiently disrupt the market – in this situation, it’d be more effective to pump money into crop diversification programmes, for example.

How can we be sure that Starbucks will be doing the former?

2. Tim Kitchin | 26th November 2008 at 11:55 am

I’m going to take your point as ‘yes and’ Peter. And I agree. 2 implications follow. Firstly, fair trade should be ‘unbundled’ into its constituent set of development accountability processes and these should be shared as an open platform for other value-chains to build their own development narrative. Secondly fair trade should enable bottom-up communication, not just top-down performance-flattening standards. Finally, in this construction corporates, like Starbucks should act as a force of innovation in the platform and also as white label resellers of its application… Starbucks Fair Trade can be ‘better’ or at least distinct from Chiquita Fair Trade, without undermining the consumer value of the fair trade brand. As a more general response to your point, accelerating accountability for development outcomes is a pervasive and growing need, where Glasshouse is already active. Trouble is we just don;t have the tools as the consumption end to drive this accountability. Hence the need for ‘VRM’…

3. Peter Parkes | 27th November 2008 at 12:08 pm

Surely the innovators will be the coffee growers who use the extra cash from fair trade sales to create better products? I don’t know enough about the mechanics of the fair trade economy to say whether or not this is a current trend, but it’d seem like a smart thing to do from my amateurish perspective.

What do you think?

(required)

(required; not displayed)

(if you have one)