Starbucks Sustains

In “Starbucks commits to sustainable coffee supply”, the author says, Starbucks knows their customers want a small amount of environmental effects to happen with their coffee, so they are giving economic help to coffee growers that aren’t harming the environment. Starbucks will pay more money for good quality coffee that comes from sustainable practice. The United States returned to the International Coffee Organization, which oversees coffee production in the world, after being gone 11 years. That the United States rejoined the group makes it much easier to fix problems with poor countries and their resident coffee farmers. One hundred million families depend on producing coffee worldwide, and they are not making a fair share yet. Starbucks represents the slow movement of America to environmental responsibility.

Starbucks is going to pay more money to make sure coffee suppliers follow rules about harming the environment. I didn’t know that making coffee hurts the environment until I read this article. So, it is very considerable topic, because Starbucks is the biggest coffee company in the world. This means they hurt a huge amount of the environment if they don’t care about it. The biggest company has to lead the way to “Go green”, so this Starbucks action is acceptable, but still they have to pay more to make good on their responsibility to lead the industry.

Starbucks made strange decisions with its profits when they jumped from 30 billion to 80 billion dollars. I’m not sure why they didn’t share profits with growers, even though their gain became double or more. Also, I don’t know why growers’ profits decreased almost half, even though their parent company was making huge profits. In my frank opinion, Starbucks kept profits all to itself. If the parent company makes big gain, they have to share it with their subsidiary.

It is suspicious that the United States was not a member of the International Coffee Organization for 11 years. I think United States and Starbucks are similar, because both are large and dominating but they were not cooperative to the environment. As Phil Bloomer, head of Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair Campaign, said, the United States should have joined the International Coffee Organization much earlier. I was really surprised at the fact that the United States had not joined the Organization, because the biggest country has to lead the way to solve global economic problems like Starbucks. I’m glad the United States has finally noticed how important “Going green” and the environment are.

In conclusion, Starbucks and America are finally realizing they too must take care of the environment. There are three ways to solve this problem, which are for Starbucks to pay more to suppliers, Starbucks to share the profits they make with growers, and the United States to rejoin the International Coffee Organization. Starbucks should stop hurting the environment, instead of avoiding it by paying more money. Also, they should try to make a more comfortable situation for growers to make coffee beans. Finally, the United States should recognize its responsibility to protect the environment.

Starbucks commits to sustainable coffee supply (2004, September 29). Food USA. Retrieved March 30, 2008, from http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=55013