Poor Farmer

At least, conceptually. Mary Crane asks on the Forbes, “So when your social responsibility agenda makes your company a target, is continuing your CSR program worth the headache?” Keith Slack of Oxfam sees it differently on Putting Teeth in Corporate Social Responsibility . “Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a fashionable, if not particularly well-defined, term in recent years.”, Keith said adding, “A key component of the general discourse around CSR has been so-called multi-stakeholder initiatives, which bring together corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations to talk about and in some cases develop mechanisms for addressing, particular areas of concern.” Keith thinks the voluntary CSR initiatives are toothless and thus “lack any real enforcement mechanism for sanctioning corporations that fail to comply with the principles or standards promoted by the initiatives.” ” Putting teeth into CSR is a challenge. Incentivizing lenders and purchasers to car...

Chronological order of major events in the Starbucks vs. Ethiopia dispute over coffee names 2004 : Starbucks filed application to register “Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo” trademark. Ethiopia asked Starbucks to drop its application because the country is preparing to register the names Sidamo and Harar; Starbucks refused to talk 2005 March : The Government of Ethiopia filed applications with USPTO to trademark Harrar, Harar, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe 2 006* : NCA filed a letter of protest asking Ethiopia's application to register all the names be denied. Starbucks then drop its application for “Shirkina Sun-Dried Sidamo” but continued to ignore Ethiopia's call to discuss. Ethiopia's application for Yirgacheffe trademark has been granted; members of the contesting party expressed their regrets for lack of preparations to block it. Ethiopia continued to seek Starbucks' voluntary agreement acknowledging the country's ownership of the names Sidamo and Harar 2006 October : Oxfam...