Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Paul McCartney is asking Peet’s Coffee & Tea to drop its charges for plant-based milks. This made my happy for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it’s good to see someone, especially someone as famous as (Sir) Paul McCartney, focusing on the details.

Government policy and scientific developments are important but, when it comes down to it, the major social and environmental problems are going to be solved primarily through personal actions. For example, many of the environmental threats to the planet (the planetary boundaries) are driven to a large extent by food production. Therefore, choosing foods with lower environmental impacts is a critical choice.

Putting pressure on corporations to change their policies can be more effective than asking governments to change (especially in the US, sigh). This can be done either by exercising your choice as a consumer or by direct communication with the company. Either way, the message is greatly amplified when it comes from a former Beetle.

Ethical rating for Peet’s Coffee & Tea – update

The other reason that I’m happy to hear the news of Macca’s request to Peet’s is because I’ve already written about the company a few times here on the GSP. I take an interest in monitoring the ethics of specific companies over time, both as a way of seeing broader trends and also to help us decide on whether to continue supporting that company. For example, this week on Ethical Bargains, I updated my rating on vegan food brand Gardein and was pleasantly surprised to see that parent company Conagra had improved since I last examined it. Conagra’s new rating of 2/5 Green Stars is still slightly subpar, but it’s a big improvement over 1/5 Green Stars in 2021.

I rated Peet’s 3.5 out of 5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact in 2021 – a little better than average thanks to factors such as supporting songbird-friendly and fair trade coffee. Then in 2022, I was happy to see an expansion of the plant-based menu at Peet’s – three pastries and two savory items are vegan. I ended up bumping the ethical rating to 4/5 Green Stars.

However, things have shifted again a little bit. Peet’s now only offer one plant-based savory item and, as Paul McCartney pointed out, they are lagging behind on plant-based milk. While other coffee chains such as Starbucks have dropped the charges for vegan milk, Peet’s still charges an extra 80 cents for a drink made with plant-based milk instead of regular dairy milk.

All the way back in 2017, I asked readers to consider Starbucks’ social and environmental impact and to give the company an ethical rating. That poll resulted in a rating of around 2.5 Green Stars for Starbucks. In 2019, I came up with a scorecard for deciding on an ethical rating for cafes and this resulted in the same Green Stars rating as the reader poll. That was a nice indication that user-generated ethical ratings can be pretty accurate.

Since then, Starbucks has made some improvements, including dropping charges for vegan milk and providing strong incentives for bringing your own mug. So watch out Peet’s – your mediocre rival* is trending upwards while you are in danger of moving in the opposite direction.

*Peet’s Coffee & Tea was founded in 1966 in Berkeley, California, and by 1971 was mentoring and supplying coffee to the founders of a new coffee company, Starbucks.

The take-home message from all of this is that companies change over time and the more we keep an eye on the details, the more likely a company will maintain or improve standards. Details matter and our success in mitigating issues such as climate change, deforestation and animal suffering will depend on little things.