STARBUCKS AND CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL

1) “Does it make any sense for Starbucks to pursue these environmental objectives with conservation international, dealing with small farmers in the backwaters of southern Mexico?” (20%)

It does make sense for Starbucks to pursue those environmental objectives due to the statement from the Senior Vice-president of CSR that 75% to 80% of consumers reward corporations that are perceived to be good corporate citizens; 20% punishes those that are not.

1.1) Provide 4 rationales that Starbucks have in order to collaborate with Conservation

International

- To have a good customer perception and as a response to letters Starbucks just started to receive regarding environmental actions from the company.

- To be congruent with the company’s uncompromising principle: Contribute positively to our communities and our environment

-To make a difference in the industry. An initiative that could extend throughout the industry of premium shade-grown coffee

- Low risk proposition from the get-go in case the coffee was bad and it couldn’t be marketed

*For us this is a good example of a company that applies the Social Web Model of CSR. We believe Starbucks realizes that they are a big part of a web of social relationships, and that every decision they make affects a lot of people in this web.

Starbucks has achieved the point where they believe to have a responsibility to do good things, with this project they try to balance the ethical interests of all the affected parties in the process of making coffee. Starbucks is a powerful company in the industry with big influence to do a lot of good, somehow their guidelines can be seen as a “moral minimum” that they expect of their suppliers according with the desires of the stockholders.

1.2) Provide the most powerful rationale the Conservation international has in order to collaborate with Starbucks

- After CI had identified coffee as an important commodity affecting biodiversity and conservation resulting in 25 million acres of rain forest had been replaced by coffee plantations around the world, making an alliance with the biggest coffee purchaser would have the biggest impact towards the environment

2) Given that there are several positive reasons for undertaking the Chiapas project, and that it appears to have produced some positive results, what do you think were the key factors that enabled this alliance between Starbucks and CI to work as well as it has? (20%)

First of all, we think that both companies values towards contribute positively to the environment was the starting point to get an understanding, this values helped forge the first memorandum of understanding (MOU) which were the guidelines to both companies. The trip that members of CI and Starbucks took to Chiapas enabled them to realize that both companies were not that different and this built trust

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