Most coffee connoisseurs wouldn’t be seen dead in a Starbucks – it’s all sugar and cream, say the purists. Critics accuse it of making expensive desserts rather than real coffee.
With menu highlights such as the Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino, which is not only a real drink but also contains 450 calories and 48g of sugar, the naysayers may have a point.
What surely can’t be in doubt is the chain’s desire to show how committed it is to saving the planet.
In fact, anyone who has ever had the misfortune to spend a few minutes scouring the Starbucks corporate website would be forgiven for thinking they had accidentally been redirected to the homepage of Greenpeace, such is the vast amount of time and resources it has dedicated to shouting about its green credentials.
The company’s most recent annual “global impact” report – stretching to an impressive 66 pages no less – takes this supposed environmental dedication to its most absurd extremes.
Among the vacuous promises it makes are that when Starbucks “is at its best” (whatever that means), it will “bridge to a better future for our partners”; “uplift the everyday for our customers”; “help ensure the future of coffee for all for our farmers”; “contribute positively to each of our communities”; and finally, “give more than we take from the environment”, in the words of its former boss Laxman Narasimhan.
