Starbucks Makes Milk Its Sacrificial Cow to Save Earth

This week, Starbucks made an announcement pledging to do its part to save the world.  The coffee chain, with 31,000 stores worldwide, will  “encourage” customers to opt for dairy alternatives rather than cow’s milk to accent their beverages. 

At first, I took Starbucks’ action as another insult to the already injured dairy industry. It is.  It’s also an example of Starbucks brilliant — and hypocritical — publicity machine. Milk, in this case, is merely Starbucks’ environmentally themed sacrificial cow in pursuit of money.  

I’ll explain.  

Starbucks is no Enviro-Angel, Hence the Posturing 

Transporting coffee from tropical, developing countries to wealthy consumers in places like the U.S. burns a lot of carbon!  Starbucks also generates 868 kilotons of waste and withdraws a billion cubic meters of water each year according to sustainability consultant, Quantis. 

Starbucks “Cares” to Appeal to Emotion

People are moved by, and make purchases based on, emotion. Facts don’t sell six dollar cups of coffee, feelings do. Starbucks knows this. 

A few years ago, the company doubled down on selling social consciousness. How? By proclaiming their coffee was purchased via “fair trade.”  “Fair trade” is a ridiculous, yet apparently effective marketing claim.  Prices for commodities like coffee are established by supply and demand on global trading markets. Are we to believe that Starbucks pays double market price just to be charitable? 

Milk Was an Easy Cow to Sacrifice 

Starbucks isn’t banning real milk, they’re just “encouraging.”  This means they get social credit for demonizing milk’s environmental record while still keeping milk in the mix. 20 percent of Starbucks’ customers already order dairy alternatives with their coffee. 

Meanwhile, Starbucks coffee is produced in countries with abysmal environmental records. Don’t forget, those coffee plantations were once tropical forest before being bulldozed to supply Starbucks. Likewise for the fields growing coconuts in Indonesia to supply the company’s Single Origin Sumatra Coconut Milk. Are you sure that’s better for the planet than milk from Wisconsin? 

Milk Money

Starbucks’ real anti-milk motivation is money. Two large investment groups with ownership in Starbucks were pushing an environmental agenda. 

Trillium Asset Management Group and sustainable investing advocacy firm, As You Sow, withdrew their shareholder proposal intended to push Starbucks toward greater “green” action after the milk announcement.  

Activist investors want environmental action. Customers want to feel like they’re saving the Earth by gulping down lattes.  And Starbucks needs to sell social consciousness, masking the company’s real environmental footprint.

The result: Milk gets maligned while capitalizing on the emotion of the moment that cows are destroying the planet. 

I won’t subscribe to this manufactured publicity stunt.  At least not until I see a dairy cow pulling out of the Starbucks drive-thru sipping a tall double latte infused with Sumatran coconut milk.  

Damian Mason is a Businessman, Agriculturalist, Speaker, Podcaster, Author, Food Guy, and Social Commentator. Find him at www.damianmason.com .

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