- July 26, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
In the early 2000s, a Starbucks ad struck a nerve with consumers and environmental activists. The ad promoted fair-trade coffee, then a burgeoning idea in the industry. The claim that Starbucks bought and served fair trade coffee was true, but it actually made up less than 15 percent of its total purchases.
The promotion landed Starbucks in hot water, and it ended up pulling the ads while publicly committing to increase its purchases of fair-trade beans. By the mid-2010s, about 96 percent of its coffee would be ethically sourced and certified through an external auditor.
The ad is a classic example of agricultural greenwashing: promoting an environmentally friendly or sustainable initiative, to divert attention away from other, more harmful business practices. It generally makes liberal use of trendy buzzwords, but it doesn’t have much substance. Or worse, whatever benefits are presented have a hidden cost. At best, greenwashing is…
