Coffee - Post 4

Today is my last day in Costa Rica and as I anxiously wait to return to the United States, the thought of the things I miss about being in the US has crossed my mind numerous times. I wouldn't call myself a Starbucks fanatic, or even say that I am a frequent visitor. However, I can honestly say that a Grande, Non-Fat, Light Whip, White Chocolate Mocha made the top three "Foods I must have immediately upon arrival into the US" list.

Since we've been studying sustainability for the past month and have heard alot about what companies in Costa Rica are doing to give back to the enviornment, I was really curious to see what the US Coffee Powerhouse was doing to help our enviornment. My first comment is that since I am using a computer in Costa Rica, every Goggle search returns websites in Spanish. So, when I first searched for Starbucks, I got the Spanish version and noted that there was a section clearly labeled on the homepage "Corporate Responisbility". However, when I typed in www.starbucks.com and got the US version, there is not a link on the homepage for corporate responsibility. Instead, one has to go to the About Us section on the homepage and then to corporate responsibiliy. Clearly Starbucks thinks that US consumers do not care as much about the enviornment as Costa Ricans; Interesting. During our class we had to do a group project that required us to make recommendations for a company concerning sustainability. Our group chose P&G, another US powerhouse. In our research, we also found that P&G does market its sustainable products as such in the US because they do not feel that US consumers really care. I personally have a huge problem with this because the truth is that these companies have a huge impact on the products that we buy. Both P&G and Starbucks do many things to better the enviornment and I just feel that they should be speaking out more about it in the US.

On the Starbucks Corporate Responsibility page, I also noted that there is a really cool game that viewers can play if they want to learn how to reverse climate change. The game is a result of Starbucks' partnership with Global Green USA. Furthermore, on the Corporate Responsibility homepage, the following is stated:

Contributing positively to our communities and environment is so important to Starbucks that it’s one of the six guiding principles of our mission statement. We work together on a daily basis with partners (employees), suppliers, farmers and others to help create a more sustainable approach to high-quality coffee production, to help build stronger local communities, to minimize our environmental footprint, to create a great workplace, to promote diversity and to be responsive to our customers’ health and wellness needs.

It seems to me that Starbucks is actually doing something to help the enviornment, but the problem is that they just don't think that US consumers really care to hear about it. Oh how wrong they are, don't they get it that if they were to advertise more about it that US citizens would in return start to think more about sustainability as well. What's the point of being sustainable if you aren't educating others about its importance as well?