COLOMBIA – The National Consumers League (NCL), a US consumer advocacy organization, has recently filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, challenging the company’s assertion of ethically sourced coffee.
The lawsuit, submitted in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, alleges that Starbucks has been misleadingly promoting its tea and coffee as 100% ethically sourced, despite evidence of human rights abuses associated with farms in Kenya, Brazil, and Guatemala.
According to the NCL, Starbucks’ marketing campaigns position the global coffee giant as a leader in ethical sourcing, but the lawsuit contends that these claims are deceptive.
The filing asserts that Starbucks’ promotional material “fails to convey the rampant sourcing from coffee and tea farms and cooperatives with a documented history of child labour, forced labour, sexual harassment and assault, and other human rights abuses.”
Sally Greenberg, CEO of NCL, emphasized the importance of transparency, stating, “On every bag of coffee and box of K-cups sitting on grocery store shelves, Starbucks is telling consumers a lie.
The facts are clear: there are significant human rights and labour abuses across Starbucks’ supply chain, and consumers have a right to know exactly what they’re paying for. NCL is committed to exposing and reining in these deceptive practices and holding Starbucks accountable for living up to its claims.”
The court filing points to Starbucks’ alleged failure to adopt meaningful reforms in response to documented labour abuses in its supply chain.
It claims that Starbucks’ failure to disclose the unreliability of certification programs and their limitations in guaranteeing ethical sourcing constitutes misleading omissions that are material to a consumer’s decision-making process.
In response to the lawsuit, a Starbucks spokesperson stated, “We are aware of the lawsuit, and plan to aggressively defend against the asserted claims that Starbucks has misrepresented its ethical sourcing commitments to customers.”
The spokesperson highlighted Starbucks’ commitment to working with business partners to meet expectations outlined in their Global Human Rights Statement and emphasized the regular reverification of each supply chain.
Among the incidents cited in the lawsuit is a 2022 case where 17 workers, including three teenagers, who were rescued from a coffee farm in Brazil. The workers were reportedly subjected to outdoor work without protective equipment and forced to lift heavy sacks of coffee.
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