Wind Renewable Energy Credits, Recycled Coffee Cups and Starbucks

All I wanted was a cup of coffee... As the wife of a trucker, I have the opportunity to ride along with my husband, traveling the country. While in Maine recently, we stopped at a travel plaza on the Maine Turnpike to stretch and grab a cup of coffee.

Having always enjoyed Starbucks and not really paying attention to its "politics" - it's a coffee house after all - I looked forward to a nice, hot cup of French Vanilla flavored coffee. It is a treat that my husband affords me occasionally, although he is not a huge fan of Starbucks. While waiting in line, I picked up a slick pamphlet titled "Social Responsibility - How My Starbucks is Doing Its Part". Nice touchy-feely title.

The first item that caught my eye was that Starbucks is acting "as a leader in both our industry and within our global society through our participation in organizations such as the United Nations Global Compact." According to the UN Global Compact website, "In an address to the World Economic Forum on 31 January 1999, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, challenged business leaders to join an international initiative - the Global Compact - that would bring companies together with UN agencies, labour and civil society to support universal environmental and social principles. The Global Compact's operational phase was launched at UN Headquarters in New York on 26 July 2000. Today, thousands of companies from all regions of the world, international labour and civil society organizations are engaged in the Global Compact, working to advance ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption ."

Yes, through the purchase of a cup of coffee, you can contribute to yet another United Nations effort to further erode our sovereignty and suck our country into a "global community" that seeks to impose a sort of "international law" on us all. Their issues range from global warming to AIDS in Africa. Not a fan of Al Gore, Bono or any United Nations money scheme, I was beginning to second guess my possible purchase. (for more information, visit www.unglobalcompact.org)

I continued reading. It seems Starbucks patted itself on its corporate back for its dedication to "diversity", trumpeting their percentages of women and "people of color" in their corporate structure and work place. Does this mean that Starbucks practices "reverse discrimination" - making sure that a certain percentage of their work force is a certain skin color or gender rather than on merit and experience? Just wondering.....

In their list of "community responsibilities", they note the millions of dollars spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts. New Orleans is still a mess and the crime rates of refugee host cities such as Houston, Texas, have gone through the roof. Enough said.

Starbucks has joined Al Gore and his carbon credits by reducing their environmental footprint and purchasing "wind renewable energy certificates." This could be interesting, I thought as I read further. According to their pamphlet, Starbucks is "using 100 percent wind renewable energy certificates. Starbucks quadrupled our renewable energy purchase to equal 20 percent of the energy used in our company-operated stores in the U.S. and Canada."

As all I wanted was a simple cup of coffee, not a socialist propaganda-filled lecture (whether in a pamphlet or disguised as a recycled coffee cup), I left Starbucks, coffee-less, reaching for my cell phone. Unable to resist, I dialed the toll free- number to their Customer Relations office on the back of the pamphlet. A cheerful young lady was able to tell me that while she isn't sure what a "wind renewable energy certificate" is, she could assure me it was real and "good for the environment."

One more question I had to ask. Starbucks claims to have saved 78,000 trees by using recycled cups for their product. How many trees, I inquired, did Starbucks murder to print this tribute to their contributions to a socialist society? I'm not sure, but I believe she passed out.......

Resources

The UN Global Compact
www.unglobalcompact.org

US Department of Energy - Green Power Network
www.eere.energy.gov

Starbucks
www.starbucks.com

Tazo Teas and Bakery
www.tazo.com