Title: Five Reasons to Boycott Starbucks
Headings: Five Reasons to Boycott Starbucks
Five Reasons to Boycott Starbucks
Boycott Starbucks

Content: But here are the facts. According to the company’s own global impact report, only 8.4 percent of the company’s coffee purchases in 2013 were certified fair trade. So how does the company get around such a dismal fair trade track record, and still fool consumers into thinking it “cares” about coffee farmers? By creating its very own “fair” trade standards. Again, according to the coffee giant’s global impact report, 95.3 percent of Starbucks coffee is "ethically sourced." But all that means is that those coffee purchases meet the (weak) standards of Starbucks’ in-house program, called CAFE (Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices). These sub-standard standards are often applied to large-scale plantations, which then compete against small-scale coffee co-ops for which (real) fair trade standards were intended to provide market opportunities. Starbucks’ CAFÉ standards are focused on the farm level, not on Starbucks' own commitment to farmers in terms or long-term stability. Unlike genuine fair trade standards, the CAFÉ program standards don’t specify either a minimum price or a standard for negotiating price that would guarantee a fair price for small farmers. You can learn more about how Starbucks skirts the Fair Trade issue at the Fair World Project.