Investing in sustainability: Starbucks, Calvert support Fair Trade.(Frontlines)(Brief Article)

Pensions & Investments, July, 2005 by Williamson, Christine

Byline: Christine Williamson Fair trade, sustainability and recycling - of money, that is - are the cornerstones of an innovative partnership between Starbucks Coffee Co., Seattle, and the Calvert Foundation, Bethesda, Md. Starbucks made a $1 million donation to the Calvert Foundation in the spring of 2004 to support small Latin American coffee farmers through loans.

Calvert lent the money to coffee cooperatives in Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua and to EcoLogic Finance Inc., Cambridge, Mass., a non-profit that provides low-interest loans and financial training to small and medium-size farms in developing countries. When the first round of loans was repaid, the assets were recycled into financing for other small coffee growers. A third round of financing...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.