Pros And Cons Of Coffee Industry

On the environmental side, coffee farmers were encouraged by foreign aid to make their lands “more modern’’ and consequently had stripped shade trees, started using harmful chemical, pesticides, fertilizers. These practices brought problems like water contamination and deforestation. From an economic point of view, laborers and coffee farmers rarely make more than $3 a day and work in very hard conditions especially during the harvest season. In the middle of the 90’s several coffee industry players, activists and customers had underestimated the role coffee plays in environmental and economic status of developing countries that produce it and expressed a desire to make a change. The recurrent oversupply of coffee meant coffee laborers and

First of all CSR helps increase profitability and value by using energy more effectively thus saving energy and manage waste in order to reduce it further. (Kielmas, 2014)

Another advantage of practicing CSR is the build of good company image and reputation in front of customers. Consumers are more likely to trust a company that stands for being responsible and ethical in their values and practices. (Kielmas, 2014)

The disadvantages can be financial for small business as the costs of CSR are usually high, allocates a budget for a CSR program can be a challenge. Another disadvantage is related to the image of the company: as much as implementing CSR can help polish the image of a business it can also tarnish it if the CSR approach is perceived as ‘’green washing’’. The practice of ‘’green washing’’ is pretending to undertake actions to contribute to environmental and social well being of communities but doing little to nothing compared to what is actually promised by the company’s values and missions. (Kielmas, 2014)

1. Analysis of the Coffee

Community Service

The Starbucks Foundations supports Starbucks employees and their local communities with Partner Match and community service. The programs undertaken by Starbucks provide matching provide matching grants to nonprofits where the company’s partners’ contributed financially and by giving some of their time to nonprofit organizations. The coffee company’s actions represent an act of citizenship to contribute to a more harmonious society.

Starbucks commits to communities in the coffee, tea and cocoa producing regions, invest in programs created to help the local development, are collaborating with NGOs used to work in farming in coffee producing countries. Along with these NGOs several projects are put in place such as access to education, agriculture, help preserve local indigenous biodiversity, increased availability to clean water, healthcare and nutrition.

What Starbucks is doing