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 Starbucks Expands Partnership with Conservation International and Supports Innovative Verde Ventures Loan Fund Half-a-Decade Partnership Continues with Multi-Million Dollar Commitment to Reduce Challenges Facing Small-Scale Coffee Producers While Conserving the Environment SEATTLE—Starbucks Coffee Company (Nasdaq: SBUX) and Conservation International (CI) today announced a $2.5 million direct loan by Starbucks to help capitalize CI's newly launched Verde Ventures fund. The fund helps provide direct access to affordable credit for small-scale coffee producers. Starbucks support is the largest loan commitment of its kind provided by a specialty coffee company. This new agreement extends Starbucks and CI's five-year partnership with an additional three-year, $1.5 million grant to support CI's Conservation Coffee™ program to conserve the environment while providing economic opportunities for coffee farmers. "I consider the Conservation Coffee™ program to be a great benefit to the region, especially for coffee producers. Through this project, CI is giving us the opportunity to use best practices for conservation coffee," said Roberto Silvino Hernandez Lievano, president of the Comon Yaj Nop Tic cooperative, one of the organizations receiving funds from the loan program. "Furthermore, the program has helped us find a market that values all that our coffee offers. Starbucks knows our work and the effort we are making in our fields, and offer us a better price that directly benefits the producers and frees us from intermediaries." In another significant move, Starbucks has renewed its partnership with CI with a total cash contribution of $1.5 million over the next three years. Starbucks and CI will continue to promote environmentally sound coffee cultivation in the manner that improves the livelihood of coffee farmers, work to expand Starbucks green coffee sourcing guidelines program, and communicate the partnership to Starbucks customers and CI audiences. Since Starbucks and CI began working together in 1998, the collaboration has produced significant benefits for habitat conservation and farmer livelihoods in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Additionally,high quality coffees from Conservation Coffee™ projects are now available to Starbucks customers across North America and select international markets, including Organic Shade Grown Mexico, Decaf Shade Grown Mexico, Conservation Colombia and Starbucks Peru. About the organizations: Starbucks Coffee Company is the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world, with more than 7,500 retail locations in North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. The Company is committed to offering the highest quality coffee and the Starbucks Experience while conducting its business in ways that produce social, environmental and economic benefits for communities in which it does business.
Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) provides a new forum for collaboration between the private sector and the environmental community. Created in partnership with Conservation International (CI) and the Ford Motor Company, CELB operates as a division of CI and is governed by a distinct executive board of leaders from the business and environmental communities-engaging the private sector worldwide in creating solutions to critical global environmental problems in which industry plays a defining role. For further information about CELB, please visit celb.org. 
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MEDIA CONTACT Katrin Olson CELB [email protected] 703-341-2768 |
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