You know that Seinfeld episode where George talks about how he wants to name his kid “Seven”?

Recently, I’ve gotten to know a guy called Six. The guy worked on a corporate social responsibility (CSR) recommendation for Starbucks as part of a StartingBloc Fellowship. A while back, he ran across green LA girl in his research, and we had a chat.

Backing up: StartingBloc is a nonprofit in NYC that’s “dedicated to creating the next generation of corporate citizens and social entrepreneurs” in order to redefine “the role and purpose of enterprise in society.” Six, a fellow at StartingBlock, took part in the Social Innovation Competition, working in a group of 6 fellows “to design a solution to a current problem that StartingBloc partner companies are facing in executing their social and environmental initiatives.” The partners for 2006: Starbucks and Zipcar.

I have to say that I thought his group’s recommendations — which sadly did not “win” this competition — were fucking brilliant. You can read it all here (PDF). It contains all sorts of innovative ideas, like actively engaging the college audience by hiring students for “advisory” internships. Seriously — Having such students participate in student-based orgs like the United Students for Fair Trade (USFT) would benefit not just Starbucks, but all students interested in fair trade issues. It would certainly be much more effective than sending older, corporate-type people who seemed to spend a lot more time defending Starbucks’ practices than actively engaging with other students.

And of course, Six’s group recommends raising the stringency of Starbucks’ CAFE practices AND raising the commitment to fair trade.

What I think is so brill about Six and his group’s work, is that it lays out the reasons why activists committed to social justice aren’t buying into CAFE practices. In fact, Six published his own lil doc on CAFE practices on his website.

The main problem with CAFE? There’s no adequate minimum price offered to the grower, as I’ve written about before. Six points to numerous instances where Starbucks stakeholders — and even Starbucks itself — talked about the importance of guaranteeing that the growers get their just dues. Despite that seeming recognition of the need for some sort of price guarantee, the economic requirements of CAFE practices is v. v. wishy washy.

Oxfam, in its report The Coffee Crisis Continues, showed that one of the negative consequences of non fair trade certification programs is “Corporate misrepresentation of true commitment to sustainable sourcing.” The problem? “Without a structurally guaranteed price incentive, these programs will result in profit incentives for buyers and marginal benefits for farmers given the added costs and requirements.”

USFT’s own guide (MSWord) about the difference between fair trade certified and Rainforest Alliance certified coffee is also v. informative. It’s important to remember that most people are unable to tell the difference between all the different labels — let alone decipher what the label-less, Starbucks-created CAFE practices really do and do not do.

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