One Tree for Every Bag

• now Isabella
• I thought this blog was about plants
• why are you bringing Starbucks into this?
• because they’re doing a really cool thing right now
• and it just so happens to relate directly to plants
• it is a coffee franchise after all
• so it’s directly linked to plants in the first place

• and they take that direct linkage seriously
• the One Tree for Every Bag program is run via the partnership between Starbucks and Conservation International
• a nonprofit, environmental organization based in Arlington, Virginia
• the two work together in an effort to promote sustainable coffee farming
• for every bag of Starbucks coffee beans you buy, Starbucks donates 70 cents
• or the cost of a new tree
• to Conservation international
• CI then uses that money to make grants to nurseries that will give the coffee trees directly to farmers in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Indonesia
• coffee is currently an at risk crop because of climate change, so replacing trees has to happen more often, and farmers are struggling
• (read more about that here)
• this replanting project is good for both agriculture and conservation
• the farmers that participate in the program must agree to
• not plant the new trees in natural forest areas
• allow any existing shade trees to continue growing in the vicinity of the coffee trees, so long as they do not entirely shade out the saplings
• and to acknowledge the fact that they are choosing to be a part of this program out of their own free will
• no one is forcing farmers to be conservationists
• but they get some perks if the participate in the preservation

For the last fifteen years, Starbucks and CI have been working together to “produce coffee in a way that is sustainable, transparent, and good for people and the planet”. I can’t help but be appreciative of environmentalist efforts coming from multinational companies like Starbucks. There is hope for corporate good in this consumerist society of ours.