The Union Brew coffee shop is set to change its supplier and distance from its previous affiliations with Starbucks, The Gaudie reports.
The decision came about in May, partly as a result of the Ethical Framework that Vice President for Communities, Ainhoa Burgos Aguilera, has been working upon for her two years in the role. The Ethical Framework is a paper designed to:
“help the Student’s Union make informed decisions about its suppliers, both current and future ones. By integrating ethical considerations into our supply chain, we aim to engage with suppliers to promote fair labour practices, respect human rights, and environmental sustainability, in hope to contribute to making a wider impact from higher up in the supply chain”.
The Ethical Framework also acknowledges that the supplier switch for Union Brew will help differentiate the cafe from other organisations who perhaps do not source their supply from ethical organisations, giving AUSA’s coffee shop a competitive advantage.
Since this decision, an Instagram post from AUSA announced that Union Brew will be closed from the 31st of May until the 18th of August.
The Starbucks corporation has previously been embroiled in controversy, leaving questions about whether it was an ethical supplier for Union Brew to be affiliated with or not. The global coffee chain’s union, Starbucks Workers United, filed an unfair labour practice charge against the corporation in late 2024, accusing the company of “refus(ing) to bargain and engaged in bad faith bargaining over economic issues”. Starbucks have faced controversy arising from their union workers for years, also being accused of unsafe working conditions during the Covid-19 crisis, resulting in mass strikes across the USA.
Most significantly, Starbucks was accused of funding and supporting Israel’s genocide and military attacks in Palestine. The Starbucks’ website currently has a statement on this topic posted, stating:
“Starbucks has never contributed to any government or military operation in any way. In response to the need for humanitarian aid, The Starbucks Foundation along with our licensed business partners, have supported our long-standing partner, World Central Kitchen, to provide more than 1M meals to families in need in Gaza.”
However, their stance on the genocide has felt contradictory and unstable, with a post shared in by the Starbucks Worker United in October 2023 stating solidarity with Palestine being hastily deleted after backlash online. These contradictory moves and failure to declare a stance publicly has branded the coffee corporation as a company that many feel worthy of boycotting, landing Starbucks on the BDS – Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions – list, which is a Palestinian led movement that calls for a boycott of Israeli and international companies in complicity with the genocide. As of February 2025, it was suggested that Starbucks has reported losses of up to $15.1 million as a result of these boycotts. The University of Aberdeen’s Palestinian Solidarity Society also called for the closure and switch in supplier for Union Brew. Starbucks as a whole is still yet to publicly share a supported side between Israel and Palestine.
AUSA’s pro-Palestinian stance, shared in May of 2024 during the encampment for Palestine on Elphinstone lawn, shared that:
“We stand with the encampment in calling for the University of Aberdeen to divest from all investments relating to the arms industry. No money intended for our education should be used to fund war directly or indirectly. As our small contribution the Students’ Union is committed to ensuring our financial investments align with our values and reflect student opinion, and to this end are currently undergoing a major review as part of our Ethical Framework.”
Ainhoa also shared that the Starbucks Corporation affiliation also failed to align with the Ethical Framework’s environmental suggestions, as their “compostable” takeaway cups were not actually compostable or recyclable. Ainhoa also shared that there were possible issues surrounding Starbucks’ “Net-Zero goals”. This move away from Starbucks will help AUSA comply with its environmental goals, stating online that:
“AUSA is working hard to ensure that sustainability is a cross-cutting theme in everything we do as a Students’ Association.
“We want to act as environmental leaders and encourage our student body to learn more about and engage with environmental initiatives, campaigns, and behaviours.”
For these reasons, AUSA has decided to separate from the supplier of Starbucks and move onto a new supplier. As of May, this new supplier was undecided and is still yet to be announced. Ainhoa shared with The Gaudie that the possible list of new suppliers will be run through the Ethical Framework before being decided, in order to select a new company link that reflects AUSA’s ethical and environmental goals.