Posted by Chris O’Brien
Co-op America (my former employer of nearly seven years) runs a program called Responsible Shopper that provides corporate social responsibility news and ratings about companies and whole industries. Here are their comparative ratings of the biggest coffee companies.
Notice in the small print that the color scheme ranges from green to yellow to orange to red in descending order of ‘responsibleness.’ Now notice that none of the biggest companies in the coffee industry earn a yellow score or better. Kraft and Starbucks fall in the orange sector while Sara Lee, Proctor and Gamble, and Nestle all deserve the red zone of corporate malfeasance.
Co-op America’s conclusion for how to be a ‘Responsible Shopper?’ Buy fair trade, organic, shade grown coffee.
June 25, 2008 at 9:35 am |
Responsible Shopper summary ratings for corporate coffee…
When I write about larger corporations in the coffee industry, I often refer or link to Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper corporate profiles. They’ve now done summaries of many industries, comparing top companies in broad categories, including gra…
June 25, 2008 at 9:54 am |
I’ve been a Coop America member for years. My Students Against Sweatshops group links their site to Coop’s responsible shopper guide. I strongly encourage all your readers to become members of and or donors to Coop America who does such a great job making our world a better place for everybody.
July 1, 2008 at 1:24 am |
thanks for the shout out, chris! brewed my second batch of organic beer last night…thanks for the inspiration!