United Kingdom – Starbucks Coffee Company (NASDAQ: SBUX) today introduces customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa to the company’s 100% responsibly grown, ethically traded espresso. Part of Starbucks™ Shared Planet™, the company’s global commitment to doing business responsibly, the espresso comes from farmers and suppliers who follow the company’s exacting sourcing standards and guidelines for social, economic and environmental responsibility developed in partnership with the environmental non-profit organisation Conservation International (CI).
"I am proud to introduce our responsibly grown, ethically traded espresso to our customers,” said Howard Shultz, CEO and chairman, Starbucks Coffee Company. “Since our founding, we have worked to positively impact the lives of farmers and their communities. This espresso is an example of our commitment to doing business the right way. It is our assurance to customers that they are making a difference every time they enjoy their favourite espresso based drink in their local Starbucks."
At Starbucks, 100% responsibly grown and ethically traded espresso coffee means that Starbucks espresso roast has met our exacting sourcing standards relating to economic transparency and quality. In addition, Starbucks buying guidelines help encourage the production of high-quality arabica coffee, allowing us to work with farmers who commit to improving their practices around a wide range of issues from how they treat their workers to managing their environmental impact. We began developing these industry-leading standards and guidelines as far back as 1998, working with CI.
As part of Starbucks commitment to working with farmers and coffee growing communities, the company has renewed its work with CI to address the critical issue of climate change. The same forests that produce the world's best coffee and sustain millions of farmers also extract and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
According to CI, approximately 20 percent* of carbon emissions come from tropical deforestation. Starbucks and CI are launching a new effort to work with coffee farmers to promote tropical rainforest conservation by taking conservation beyond coffee farms and into surrounding landscapes. Currently under development are two pilot projects supported by Starbucks and implemented by CI in Mexico and Indonesia.
Ultimately, Starbucks and CI hope to leverage their global scale to pilot such projects across all coffee growing regions – Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. In addition, activities around climate mitigation will be governed by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standards, one of the top recognized standards for designing land-management projects which can deliver compelling environmental and sustainable development benefits in addition to combating climate change.
"Our partnership with Starbucks plays an important role in our effort to mitigate the effects of climate change in some of the most threatened areas of the world – tropical forests," said Peter Seligmann, Chairman and CEO of Conservation International. "By integrating the work of coffee farmers into its overall efforts to combat climate change, Starbucks is addressing head-on one of the most important issues of the day."
"I am proud to introduce our responsibly grown, ethically traded espresso to our customers," said Howard Shultz, ceo and chairman, Starbucks Coffee Company. "Since our founding, we have worked to positively impact the lives of farmers and their communities. This espresso is an example of our commitment to doing business the right way. It is our assurance to customers that they are making a difference every time they enjoy their favourite espresso based drink in their local Starbucks."
*CI regularly reassesses our assumptions and conclusions to ensure they are consistent with the most current and reliable data sources available so that we are delivering accurate and up-to-date information. Accordingly, in December 2009, we updated our estimates related to global greenhouse gas emissions to reflect the best and most current science. We now estimate that 16% of greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation and logging.
See our deforestation, logging and GHG emissions factsheet (PDF - 2.7KB) for details and data sources.
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Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) provides a new forum for collaboration between the private sector and the environmental community. Created in partnership with Conservation International (CI) and the Ford Motor Company, CELB operates as a division of CI and is governed by a distinct executive board of leaders from the business and environmental communities-engaging the private sector worldwide in creating solutions to critical global environmental problems in which industry plays a defining role.