Ethical Sourcing
Since opening our first store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1971, we’ve remained committed to sourcing and roasting the world’s finest coffee. As we have grown and evolved, our commitment to promoting socially and environmentally responsible growing practices has delivered industry-leading results. We have found that we’re able to serve a great cup of coffee while helping to improve the lives of farmers and protect the planet.
Over the years Starbucks has received input from a broad range of stakeholders that has helped us create a holistic approach to responsibly sourcing our coffee. We are committed to continuously improving economic transparency, promoting responsible labor practices, reducing environmental impacts and ensuring the long-term supply of our high-quality coffee. While we know there is much more to do, we have already made a measurable impact in coffee-growing communities where we do business.
Our approach is grounded in Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, our comprehensive set of social, economic, environmental and quality guidelines. Farms and mills are evaluated with approximately 200 performance indicators by third-party verification organizations, overseen by Scientific Certification Systems.
The implementation of C.A.F.E. Practices, which we developed in collaboration with Conservation International (CI) more than seven years ago, has made significant social, environmental and economic impacts on the more than one million workers employed by participating farms. A recent analysis by CI of C.A.F.E. Practices found that among the more than 100,000 participating farms: 99 percent of school-age children on small farms were able to attend school, 99 percent have not converted any natural forest habitat to coffee products since 2004, and the majority of workers earn higher than the legal minimum wage for their country.
We complement purchases of C.A.F.E. Practices-verified coffee with third-party certified coffees grown and produced in ways that contribute to environmental preservation and/or sound production standards, including Fairtrade certified coffee and certified organic coffee.
Another component of our approach is helping farmers and cooperatives advance their businesses by improving their access to credit. We continue our capital commitment to the farmer loans program and we explored opportunities to facilitate farmer access to forest carbon markets in our pilot projects in Chiapas, Mexico, and Sumatra, Indonesia.
We’ve learned a great deal on this journey, and we’re applying the knowledge we’ve gained through our work with coffee farmers to other products, such as tea, cocoa and the manufactured products we sell in our stores.