Analysis of Features of Starbucks 2021 CSR Report
Assignment - The primary characteristics of a thorough CSR report on your chosen company (from the list of companies provided).
KEY POINTS
In this assignment, you aim to understand the key areas of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting using extracts, examples and approaches to CSR issues. This will include investigating topics from throughout the course linked to the ethics and accountability issues. Some principles, concepts and models will be more relevant to a company chosen approach than others and so it is likely that different students will plan different approaches to the questions.
In your assignment, aim to provide readers with comprehensive knowledge and critical reviews of these areas covering, for example:
Knowledge of a variety of topics related to CSR, ethics, and accountability.Knowledge of comparing a range of definitions of CSR within the practitioner community and several theoretical frameworks that apply to the CSR discipline.Understandings of, comments on, arguments and contributions to the topic, such as key qualitative characteristics, true and fair view/fair presentation of CSR.Therefore, the assessment encourages you to explore how accountability may be enhanced and how a more ethical business environment may be nurtured by exercising transparency by a company via CSR reporting. This engages you in the academic literature and real-world example to view what you need to apply in your assignment.
You should approach this assignment as an academic essay, weighing the arguments for and against each issue, making comments on the literature, and drawing logical conclusions. Academic referencing using the Harvard referencing approach is a key requirement of the assignment to show wider reading and to underpin the discussions, ensuring they have relevant depth. We encourage you to be inquisitive and innovative in your approach to what it should include in this report.
TaskStep 1
Each student selects his/her own company to study from the list of companies provided (Appendix one: the company list).
Appendix one: The company list: Step 2
The requirement is that you analyse in depth one company's primary characteristics of their CSR report. The scope of this analysis is to draw from the material discussed within the module.
Analysis contents:
1. Introduction: a short section setting out Basic Factual Information about the company, such as nature of the business, size, segmental breakdown, brief history, stock market listings, etc. [Approx. 250 words- 10 Marks]
2. The main body contains:
2.1. Examines the specific features of thorough CSR reporting, including:• Introductory letters• Mission and Value statement• Key facts and figures concerning most important CSR efforts and their progress• Graphs and tables• Letters of assurance or CSR auditors’ statement
ANALYSIS OF FEATURES OF STARBUCKS 2021 CSR REPORT
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Analysis of Features of Starbucks 2021 CSR Report
Introduction
Due to the high demand for high-quality products and services in marketing goods, businesses play a significant role in the development of society and the environment. Companies, however, are required to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). One such company that engages in CSR is Starbucks, whose mission statement and guiding principles reflect a commitment to socially and environmentally responsible business practices. The CSR approach of Starbucks is organized into three pillars environment, community, and ethical sourcing. Starbucks is an American global coffee house started in 1971 and headquartered in Seattle. Starbucks is a specialty coffee vendor that roasts, sells, and trades in specialty coffee. In addition, Starbucks sells various coffee blends, handcrafted beverages, snacks, food items, and merchandise through its stores. Starbucks operates in Africa, America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East through licensed and owned stores. Starbucks makes revenues from its stores, single-serve items, equipment sales, product sales, and authorized partners. As of FY2021, Starbucks had thirty-four thousand stores; it operates in over eighty nations. In addition, Starbucks is listed on the New York stock exchange and trading under SBUX with a $111.31 Billion market cap as of November 2022. This paper analyzes the features of Starbucks’ 2020/21 CSR report.
Features of Thorough CSR Reporting
Introductory Letters
In Starbucks’ 2020 CSR report, Starbucks’ president and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kevin Johnson, outlines what the company has achieved in FY2020. The achievements comprise salary increases for workers and investments in renewable energy that are helping their locations and the communities in which they are located. The CEO emphasized the strategic focus for FY2021: establishing new commitments and goals for inclusion and diversity, investing $100 million in black communities’ projects, and empowering women and girls globally (Starbucks, 2020, p.2). The CEO concludes with a word of gratitude and calls on all stakeholders to collaborate in helping the company attain its set targets.
Mission and Value Statement
In his opening remarks, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson emphasizes Starbucks’s mission to inspire and foster the human spirit. Johnson emphasizes that Starbucks works to fulfill this objective by fostering relationships with and positively influencing people and communities globally (Starbucks, 2020, p.4). The CEO’s remarks highlight Starbucks’ value statement of using its reach and scale to build a better society. Additionally, Starbucks’ commitment to transparency in being an individual, planet, and revenue-positive company is highlighted in the value statement in the CSR report by providing information in accordance with the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting criteria outlined by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
Key facts and figures concerning the most critical CSR efforts
The report uses facts and data to demonstrate the CSR efforts Starbucks made to its stakeholders and to show how far they have come. Through the Starbucks Foundation, it gave grants totaling over $17 million to Starbucks nonprofit organizations in Seattle as well as in local communities and coffee- and tea-growing regions globally in FY20. Additionally, it contributed more than $10 million in foundation grants to local and international COVID-19 programs. Starbucks community response initiatives comprised donations to the UN Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity emergency kitty to finance WHO and initiatives meant to foster COVID-19 aversion and community resilience in China (Starbucks, 2020, p.5). In addition, Starbucks sponsored COVID-19 deterrence awareness. Finally, it enlarged promptly and required direct support across tea and coffee planting communities in Ethiopia, Colombia, India, and Guatemala, impacting over two hundred thousand individuals in a year.
The Foundation financed hunger relief and emergency help initiatives for vulnerable persons in America and supported its frontline responders in these emergencies. Additionally, The Starbucks Foundation gave current grant recipients the freedom to use money from earlier grants to react to COVID-19. The Foundation pledged to provide $5 million to charities that support BIPOC youth at the beginning of FY21(Starbucks, 2021, p.5). Starbucks had attained its goal of empowering over two hundred thousand women and girls as of march 2021 through its coffee and teal planting communities’ initiatives targeted to end by 2025 by impacting communities in Asia, Latina America, and Africa. These programs are targeted at breaking down obstacles to access to sanitation, education, clean water, and hygiene and creating economic prospects for women in communities Starbucks operates.
Graphs and tables
The report uses tables to demonstrate the company’s milestones in terms of racial and social inclusion goals. Starbucks continues to pursue its goal of attaining thirty percent of black, Indigenous, and persons of color (BIPOC) representation at all corporate levels and at least forty percent in retail and manufacturing positions.
Figure 1: Diversity measures at Starbucks
Letters of Assurance or CSR Auditors’ Statement
The report has an assurance statement that emphasizes the report’s focus on individuals, persons positive, planet positive, and coffee. The independent account report indicates that Starbucks management is answerable for the data discussed in the description (Starbucks, 2021, p.65). The CSR’s auditor’s statement attests that Starbucks sources ninety-five percent of its coffee as outlined in the Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) practices. Similarly, the auditor’s assessment was done per the attestation benchmarks mandated by the American certified public accountant’s institute.
Interviews and Surveys from Stakeholders
The report describes testimonies from interviews and surveys done with stakeholders by Starbucks. Thus, these interviews and surveys highlight how impactful Starbucks activities, such as CAFÉ practices, have enabled farmers to improve their social and economic lives. Starbucks assist coffee growers in planting trees and modernizing their farming techniques to raise productivity and decrease their environmental effects through Starbucks’ global Farmer kitty. The interviews depict the Starbucks Foundation’s impact on improving the socio-economic welfare of the communities it serves.
Stakeholders In the CSR Report
Investors
Starbucks ensures that they cater to investors’ interests by engaging in CSR activities that build awareness of the company brand ...