Besnik Shakiri

MAR 100

Fall 2022

Today, I will get into the company Starbucks, and their social responsibility and ethical business principles. Firstly, what is Starbucks? Starbucks is an international corporation business chain, founded in the United States. Headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington, Where the company originated. Starbucks is known and admired for their craftsmanship in Coffee and beverages, that is why they are still a very relevant company since their small beginnings. There is a demand for quality coffee and they do their best to reach their consumers needs. For their ethical sourcing of manufactured goods, Starbucks has a requirement of suppliers of manufactured goods to comply on all health codes, laws, environment regulations and discrimination laws in each of their places of business. They as a company require suppliers to communicate with employees to uphold these standards. Starbucks has a zero tolerance for child labor as well as prison labor. It is important to them to be ethically sourcing their goods and having ethical labor be a strong support system of the company itself. Through time Starbucks has been target for not keeping their word that they don’t use child labor to gather their coffee. In a British documentary that focused on child labor in coffee farms, Starbucks was called out as one of the many companies using this unfair labor as part of their practice. Since these allegations had arisen, Starbucks has released several official statements that these speculations were simply horrific and untrue, and that child labor is not a part of the ethics of the company. They have a history of fair-trade production as well as supporting coffee farms in Guatemala for sustainable farming of coffee beans. They have made several commitments to ensure these practices stay safe and of regulation on these farms and continue to provide support to farmers in association with fair trade practices. Starbucks also has an ethical sourcing program, with scrutiny for continual improvement, as part of their practice and efforts to further continue ethical sourcing of product. The program C.A.F.E. that Starbucks is affiliated with has a zero tolerance against child labor and takes action to protect these practices at all cost.

            As far as sustainability and social impact on the environment, Starbucks continues to stride for transparency with their practices and remain as sustainable as possible, always looking for room to improve. As an effort to cut down on the production of single use plastic and waste that ends up in landfills, The company has nixed the use of plastic straws for more sustainable options, as well as using recyclable materials in their cups and packaging to decrease their environmental footprint. After looking into the company more and it’s goals, I strongly agree with most of the things that they are doing to ensure their practices. I highly agree with the idea of zero plastic waste and the elimination of it. I would suggest to Starbucks to further continue their efforts to eliminate plastic in their cups and packaging and alternate to using recycled materials to further help retain sustainability and have a smaller impact of production on the environment.