THE battle for the ethical dollar is heating up. As BP became the first national retail chain to switch its entire coffee supply to Fairtrade, the certification marque this week went public with its concerns that McDonald's is stealing its thunder.

In the past week, billboards, bus shelter posters and internet ads have been trumpeting the petrol retailer's commitment to selling Fairtrade coffee, which guarantees coffee growers in developing countries a minimum price for each kilogram of coffee and an additional premium to go towards community projects.

For more on this article from the Sydney Morning Herald click here.

For a similar article from Trade Aid in New Zealand

Tribes and Nations value the commitment of RFA to the environment and acknowledge that this in turn has improved the surroundings and safety of the farmers themselves. We, like Trade Aid, have fallen on the side of Fairtrade as their price guarantee is one thing that RFA does not deliver on. Through their tightly audited system, from farmer to retailer, Fairtrade gives great assurance that cheap 'exploitive beans' have not been mixed in with the certified product. More so, all our coffees are organic so the exclusion of chemicals is also guaranteed, a promise not made by RFA.

For more on the Fairtrade and RFA debate click here.

I settled down to eat my veggie sub from Subway. I'm guilt-ridden: it's corporate, not local food. But as I glance down at my Subway napkin, I'm able to feel a bit relieved as it reads, "100 percent recycled fiber with a minimum of 60 percent post-consumer material processed chlorine free and printed with water based inks." It has become clearer than ever that being green is big business. More and more companies are catching on - it's profitable to be green.

Unfortunately, it's also profitable to seem green. The term is ambiguous and leaves plenty of room for deceit. At the same time that some companies are truly adopting progressive policies, just as many are faking it. One such example is Starbucks. In full-page ads in the New York Times, in brochures and on their website, Starbucks says it pays premium prices for premium beans, protects tropical forests and is committed to supporting coffee farming communities. The Starbucks NYT ad carries the slogan "Fair Trade - bringing us a little closer, making lives a little better."

What their PR fails to mention is "the so-called 'enormous commitment' to buying Fair Trade coffee amounts to a grand total of one tenth of one percent of the company's total coffee purchases" (Organic Consumers Association). Starbucks has long avoided the call to sell only Fair Trade Certified coffee by purporting to make up for it in charity. Recently, the Green L.A. Girl blog pointed me to an investigative report in the Sacramento Bee on the real story behind Starbucks' eco and worker-friendly claims. SacBee's Tom Knudson spent three weeks in Ethiopia and found the very Ethiopian farmers Starbucks alleges to benefit are actually living in poverty, "forced to settle for a little charity instead of receiving a fair price for their coffee."

One of Starbucks' feel-good cards are the footbridges they funded for a whopping $25,000 in Ethiopia's famous Sidamo coffee-growing region, which helps farmers get to work safely. But as Tadesse Meskela, a farmers' co-op manager points out in the article, "If we are paid a (coffee) price which is decent, the people can make the bridge on their own… We don't have to always be beggars." Muel Alema, a rail-thin coffee farmer who lives near a Starbucks-funded footbridge said, "We plant and harvest coffee but we never get anything out of it."

This demonstrates one of the pitfalls in trying to help the disparity between "third world" developing countries and industrialized nations like the U.S. - unfortunately, charity is usually not the answer. Although it is the simplest and most likely to produce short-term effects, charity does not necessarily create change. Rather, real solutions are in the complex direction of policy change, eliminating middlemen profits and activism that puts the tools in the hands of the people who are struggling.

If you're wondering how Starbucks gets away with all this and still gets a gold star, just remember: we're talking about a multi-billion dollar company that "opened an average of 25 stores a week last year in the United States alone," according to the article.

Dean Cycon, founder of Dean's Bean's, an organic coffee company in Massachusetts, calls Starbucks "a marketing genius." "They put out cleverly crafted material that makes the consumer feel they are doing everything possible," Cycon said. "But there is no institutional commitment. They do it to capture a market and shut up the activists." Clearly not the behavior we'd expect, as we are duped into paying extra for a seemingly responsible corporate citizen.

Thank goodness LMU doesn't have a Starbucks (we proudly serve 100 percent Fair Trade Certified coffee), but obviously Starbucks isn't the only culprit. This is standard business. I can think of one LMU neighbor that is guilty of the same dishonest green-washing of their image (ehem, Playa Vista).

Ultimately, being a consumer just got harder. So next time you notice a company flaunting their progressive practices, don't buy it, especially if they need a full-page NYT ad to preach about it.

This is the opinion of Caitlin Rogers, a senior urban studies major from Greenfield, Mass. Please send comments to adwyer@theloyolan.com

Illusions in your coffee mug

Caitlin Rogers

Media Credit: Courtesy of Caitlin Rogers

Media Credit: Matthew Mahoney