Gianna Silva
Ethics Assignment
When I read this assignment I knew right off the bat that I was going to research Starbucks. My cousin and my sister work there and I’ve literally been going there everyday for the past i don’t even know how many years. It’s my favorite place. I just noticed that I’ve never actually researched anything about Starbucks, so I thought this assignment was really cool for me to go more into depth about a product that I drink every single day.
Some background information for people who do not know what Starbucks is; Starbucks is an American multinational corporation. It’s a chain of coffee houses and Roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the world’s largest coffee house. As of November 2022, the company has 35,711 stores and 80 different countries. 15,873 of these coffee houses are located in the United States. Their story began in “1971 along the cobble streets of Seattle historic Pike Place market”. After that the company just kept expanding to different states, then to different countries. Starbucks is now a Worldwide chain. A cool piece of information that I found while doing research is “12 places around the world, where Starbucks is band, sand, or basically unsuccessful”. They are; western Australia, Barbados, Nantucket Massachusetts, Door county Wisconsin, Italy, Cuba, Iran, Alaska, Israel, Croatia, Pakistan, and West Virginia.
I did some research on Starbucks’s social responsibility efforts. In the year 2002 the company launched its first corporate social responsibility report. The goal of this report was to explain “The information in this report is for fiscal year 2002 (October 1, 2001 through September 29, 2002) and primarily covers Starbucks company-operated retail and distribution operations in North America and sourcing activities in coffee-origin countries”. On page 3 of this report it states the “THE BUSINESS CASE FOR CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY”. I read the whole thing and basically it is explaining how the company was trying to set policies and practices that would benefit the business operation. Starbucks believed that while conducting their business responsibility plans that it would have an impact on the company as well as their “stake- holders—partners (employees), customers, sup- pliers, shareholders, community members and others”. The company was only trying to have a good look for themselves but also everyone that entered their establishments and that says a lot for their social responsibility.
Secondly I did some research on the company’s ethical principles. What I mean by ethical principles is how the principles take into account certain standards and values for the customers that are purchasing their product. Many brands don’t take into account that people use their products, they should care about the ingredients and the side effects. Many just care about money but not starbucks they care about their customers. “In 2015, Starbucks verified that 99 percent of its coffee supply chain is ethically sourced, and it seeks to boost that figure to 100 percent through continued efforts and partnerships with local coffee farmers and organizations”. Basedon the research I have gathered, Starbucks has been working hand and hand with Conservation International and they stated that,“Our work with Starbucks didn’t happen overnight. It has been a fifteen year journey learning how to embed sustainable practices into their sourcing structure so that coffee can be good for people and the planet,” this shows how much the company does behind the scenes for us.
Works Cited
https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/places-around-the-world-where-starbucks-is-banned https://www.starbucks.com/about-us/ https://athome.starbucks.com/learn/how-we-approach-ethical-sourcing https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/corporate-social-responsibility-examples https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/starbucks-ethical-sourcing-program/ https://content-prod-live.cert.starbucks.com/binary/v2/asset/137-71974.pdf
