Our goal – 100% responsibly grown, ethically traded.
In 2008, we put a major stake in the ground by making a public commitment that all of our coffee will be responsibly grown and ethically traded by 2015. This is our goal for ethical sourcing under Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ – and our pledge to you. Read about our progress.
Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ coffee.
We have always worked to buy our coffee in a way that respects the people and places that produce it. It's simply what we believe to be right. We've also established specific environmental, social, economic and coffee quality principles. These principles are the foundation of our commitment to ethical sourcing under Starbucks™ Shared Planet™. Coffees that are responsibly grown and ethically traded under these principles are called Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ coffees.
Over the last decade, Conservation International has helped us develop guidelines that address our principles for ethical sourcing. Called Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, these guidelines help our farmers and suppliers fulfill the principles of Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ coffee offerings. C.A.F.E. Practices is a comprehensive set of measurable standards, including 24 criteria supported by more than 200 environmental and social indicators.
In 2008, seventy-seven percent – 295 million pounds – of the coffee we bought was purchased from suppliers who have been verified and approved under C.A.F.E Practices guidelines. To gain approval, suppliers must be evaluated by an independent third party to demonstrate they are in compliance with our zero-tolerance standards and are making progress toward the implementation of the guidelines. Find out how our suppliers scored.
Good for farmers – and the earth.
Responsibly grown, ethically traded coffee also means we're working with farmers to produce coffee in ways that help provide benefits to their business, their communities and the environment.
Since establishing our first Farmer Support Center in Costa Rica in 2004, we've been able to work more directly with farmers in the field, encouraging their use of the best agricultural practices. In 2008, 1.2 million farmers and workers were impacted by C.A.F.E. Practices.
Also in 2008, we expanded our on-the-ground presence in Africa by hiring a director of agronomy to oversee the new Farmer Support Center in Rwanda. We also remain committed to opening a Farmer Support Center in Ethiopia at some point in the future.
Read how coffee farmers helped rebuild East Timor and joined C.A.F.E. Practices.
Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Ethical Sourcing Principles
Our ethical coffee-sourcing principles have four areas of focus.
Product Quality (requirement):
All coffee must meet Starbucks standards of high quality.
Economic Accountability (requirement):
Transparency is required. Suppliers must submit evidence of payments made throughout the coffee supply chain to demonstrate how much of the price Starbucks pays for green (unroasted) coffee gets to the farmer.
Social Responsibility (evaluated by third-party verifiers):
Measures in place that concern safe, fair and humane working conditions. These include protecting the rights of workers and providing adequate living conditions. Compliance with the indicators for minimum-wage requirements and addressing child labor/forced labor and discrimination is mandatory.
Environmental Leadership (evaluated by third-party verifiers):
Measures in place to manage waste, protect water quality, conserve water and energy, preserve biodiversity and reduce agrochemical use.
Farmer story
Renewing a partnership, rebuilding a community – Cooperativa Café Timor, East Timor
Starbucks helped improve primary health services in Estado, Dukurai, Lissapat and Manelobas villages so more expectant and new moms would have access to quality care.
Cooperativa Café Timor (CCT) is a coffee farmer cooperative formed in 1995 with the intention of raising quality standards so local coffee farmers could get higher prices. And it worked – soon after CCT was established, Starbucks began buying the co-op's coffee and paying about 30 percent or more than the commodity market price. Conditions for local farmers improved as planned – until a setback in 1999 when violence erupted after East Timor sought independence from Indonesia.
The new government had the task of rebuilding the local economy. Coffee is a significant industry, with 25 percent of East Timor's population depending directly on it for their livelihoods. CCT, which exports more than half the country's coffee, is particularly vital not only to the more than 20,000 local small-scale farmers who are members, but to the nation as well.
CCT re-emerged as a voice in the Timor coffee industry, renewing its focus on coffee quality. It became a Fair Trade Certified™ co-op in 2001, and two years later began selling to Starbucks again. Today CCT is not only part of the Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ coffee-supplier base, it is the largest single-source producer of organic-certified coffee in the world.
In 2008, the Starbucks relationship brought added benefits to residents of four remote villages within CCT's network. Through direct social investments, local primary-health services were greatly improved with a focus on expectant and new mothers and their infants, especially in the remote rural coffee-growing highlands. Today, access to health services is a key benefit offered to CCT's vast membership.
