Comments on: Response from Starbucks

By: trill42

trill42 — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 22:28:39 +0000

Word. If they don’t want to be fair trade, they shouldn’t say they are. Kind of sad that their response largely amounts to professing ignorance. Even if it was true it wouldn’t excuse a thing.

By: Siel

Siel — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 08:17:56 +0000

The “we’re all fair trade” thing’s my current biggest beef with Starbucks. If they admit it’s bullshit, they should stop making that claim.

By: Maya

Maya — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 05:54:37 +0000

Yes, I agree that Sbx should just be honest about their claims instead of just saying “we’re not a perfect system..” blah..blah..blah..it seems like they’re wanting us to excuse their practices…yeah to get better at them, ok we’ll give them a chance to better themselves in time..but to accept the false claims and barista’s responses, that’s another story…that’s wrong for a company that big where they should be more responsible for their actions.

We’ll see where this is going…

Merry X-mas and Happy New Year 2006, Siel and everyone…, May your wishes and dreams come true in the new year to come.

By: beev

beev — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 21:41:32 +0000

Yes, I agree. They were being dishonest. I just hope they haven’t permanently sullied the term ‘fairly traded’ because there are plenty of others who use it with no intention of misleading anyone.

By: Siel

Siel — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 11:06:18 +0000

Def. possible that Starbucks could be moving in the direction. My main issue with the “fairly traded” thing is that the mermaid’s training their barista’s to say that ALL their coffee’s ALREADY fairly traded — when they know that that’s not true. All I’m sayin’ is, why not just say they’re WORKING on making everything fairly traded?

By: beev

beev — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 18:03:28 +0000

I recognise a difference between ‘Fairtrade’ and ‘fairly traded’. The former tells you some very specific things while the latter is rather woolly and vague. It should not be used, however, without some justification. I’m looking to launch a range of organic t-shirts which cannot in practicality be Fairtrade certified at the moment, but because they are traded in an accountable and non-exploitative manner I would like to be able to describe them as ‘fairly traded’.

As I understand it, Starbucks is gradually increasing the amount of contracts with transparency written into them. They do this as old contracts expire and are renewed. Is that right?

Cindy claims Starbucks is trying to increase the levels of transparency in the industry generally. I find this believable as it would help them to stay competitive in the light of their own CSR efforts.

By: Roger, Gone Green

Roger, Gone Green — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 17:20:13 +0000

Yes, this letter was a lot more spin, and a lot less substance, than the local managers gave you. This is why I was pretty happy with a time-certain and a clear metric from meeting their goals. Here, you have still fairly vague commitments to do good stuff, and an example of the near conflation of FT and SBX own practices. On the other hand, albeit with a bit of gushing spin, they did cop to needed changes.

In the end, one major problem that infects corporate thinking is the requirement that they make a business case for all decisions. If there is not a customer clamor for FT, it might not be justified. This is, as was discussed recently at Ardent Eden, a driving force for all companies. To do the right thing just because it is the right thing could leave a corporation open to suit.

At the same time, the claim on their web page is an advertising claim — which it is documented and admitted has not been me, and they have set a new metric to gauge if they met their own claims locally, so there is a proper economic incentive remaining to avoid the false advertising claim this time next year (grin).

By: Siel

Siel — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 05:24:52 +0000

I dunno — I guess I kinda feel like they haven’t actually said they’ll DO anything. I mean, it’s one thing to admit one’s not perfect, quite another to work on straightening out some of those imperfections.

As in, if a company admits their claims at being “all fair trade” isn’t accurate, shouldn’t they, um, commit to not saying that anymore? If Starbucks admits that, with its current training system, a “break down in customer service” occured, doesn’t then make sense to take action beyond continuing “our commitment to continued education” — which, as they admitted, hasn’t worked?

If Bush responded to the fiasco that’s Iraq by just saying, well, the admin isn’t perfect — then just sat there lookin’ pretty –

At this point, the LA Starbucks managers really seem like saints to me — Happy holidays, Pat, et al –

By: Rainy

Rainy — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 01:55:25 +0000

This letter, overall, made me feel positive, though I have to really sit down and go through the information a little more, later.

Mostly, I like that they are copping to not having all the answers, that it isn’t a perfect system and that they’re trying. I think that’s a much more fair and honest answer than the ‘company line’ that was given at the beginning of this venture. It seems like you’ve made them aware of some very big problems and maybe there will be progress towards a more FT friendly Starbucks in future.