Is your espresso really ethical?

  Drinking your morning caffeine hit comes with innumerable ethical dilemmas...   Ushering in a new ethical era in food and drink comes with a myriad of solutions, and with those solutions, a subset of new problems. Many have to do with the subjective definition of ‘ethical’. Everybody wants their product to have a certification that proclaims it is ethical because ethics appeal to the consumer. One of the first products to be certified was one of the worlds most traded commodities: coffee. With the explosion of mass chain cafes that target an eco-friendly demographic, the ethical badge is wanted more than ever. However, which of the big badges can you trust? RAINFOREST ALLIANCE Choosing from a selection of coffees from Rainforest Alliance certified farms directly supports sustainable farming as well as the families who work hard to harvest them, improving their daily quality of life and providing them with improved tools and techniques to maintain an eco-friendly business. Rainforest Alliance has come to into controversy lately from human rights groups. Rainforest Alliance recently recertified the Tres Hermanas (suppliers of Chiquita) banana plantations in Honduras as “sustainable,” despite years of systematic rights abuses. Since 2009, workers at Tres Hermanas have been accused of several employment rights violations, including failure to pay the minimum wage, unpaid overtime, and the illegal sacking of workers attempting to form a union. To protect their rights, workers formed an officially recognized union in 2012. However, rather than negotiate with the union, senior management at Tres Hermanas has waged an illegal campaign of targeted firings and harassment against union members. (source: International Labor Rights Forum) FAIRTRADE Fairtrade is arguably the most well known and respected of all ethical labels. It set in motion an incredible start to the culture of ethical food and the highlighting of exploitation by buyers, and has undoubtedly worked wonders for many small farmers and food production in the third world. However, many people, although they know what ‘Fairtrade’ aims to achieve (fair prices for workers), don’t know the ins and outs, and could find themselves slightly deceived by Fairtrade itself. Fairtrade only sets a minimum pricing for certain products. Fairtrade doesn’t monitor how much extra retailers charge for products with the Fairtrade certification. It has been found that in particular cases, companies were charging a significant extra amount to customers for Fairtrade coffee, yet less than 1% of that extra charge was going to the farmer. The reasonable consumer expects that most of their extra charge was given to that farmer; and that is why they have paid it. Instead criticism has suggested it has been a huge profit maker for companies, as not only has it improved their social image, it has also enabled them to add a considerable margin onto their product. STARBUCKS C.A.F.E PROGRAMME Starbucks, arguably the biggest force in takeaway coffee sales and one of the most popular brands of all time, have not exactly had the most sparkling of reputations when it comes to work ethics, especially with the recent tax evasion controversy. However, on deeper inspection, Starbucks lofty ethical claims have a lot to answer for. All of Starbucks UK Espresso based products are now FairTrade. However, overall, this makes little impact.  In its 2009 fiscal year (Oct. 2008 - Sept. 2009), the chain purchased 367 million pounds (around 160 million kilos) of coffee. Only 40 million were Fair Trade beans, or just over 10% of the retailer’s total coffee purchases. Although that’s an admirable 50% increase, up from about 20 million pounds in 2007, it is a number that’s stayed relatively steady as a percentage of total purchases. In its 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility report, “Our Commitment to Ethical Sourcing,” Starbucks notes that its Fair Trade offerings are “keeping pace with consumer demand.” A vague statement that refuses to commit itself to a more revolutionary ethical commitment. Starbucks has instead put its focus on developing an internal certification program unique to Starbucks, the C.A.F.E. program, or Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices. The programme allows the chain to get around a non-negotiable criterion for Fair Trade: Only beans produced by small farmers that participate in cooperatives are eligible. The C.A.F.E. program gives Starbucks more leniency, allowing it to buy beans from large farms, in addition to small farmers who do not participate in cooperatives. They also promise to pay ‘a fair days wage for a fair days work’. In Ethiopia, one of their sourcing countries, a dollar a day is an average ‘fair’ pay packet. What’s more, 19% of their coffee didn’t come from C.A.F.E at all… which means some 100 millions pounds of coffee was completely uncertified. In the Consumer Reports site article, "How meaningful is the label?", Fair Trade Certified and Rainforest Alliance coffee, amongst others, were awarded a designation of "Highly." Despite the uniformity of the evaluation on Consumer Reports, however, the varying certification programs vary without being that transparent. This inconsistency in approach and responsibility is a regulation trend that disturbs many eco-friendly branding efforts, and allows coffee chains and suppliers to bend the labels to meet their own demands and profit expectations.   By Hope Nelson (Sources used: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/september/food/specialty-coffee/coffee-types/index.htm http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=439 http://www.griffithsspeaker.com/Fairtrade/Ethical%20Objections%20to%20Fairtrade%20web.pdf)   HNCoffeeBlog/240913