How ethical is Starbucks?

A friend of mine recently leant me a pullout from The Guardian entitled 'A Guide to Ethical Living'.  Whilst the guide was extremely interesting (and no doubt the source of many future posts), what intrigued me was the fact that it was produced 'in association with Starbucks.'

Now, I'm no expert on irony. 

But I do know that the various ethical people I've had the pleasure to be friends with would not consider Starbucks to be a guru in the field of ethics (rightly or wrongly.)

I do know that Starbucks serves 100% fairtrade coffee (which is excellent) and has various charity initiatives (for example donating 5p for every cup of coffee sold to the Global Fund for World AIDS Day) - which is also excellent. 

However, I also know that Starbucks have been heavily criticised for:

- forcing the closure of other coffee shops, both independent and those of rival chains

- having environmentally damaging policies (for example having taps constantly running to ensure utensils are clean)

- having a draconian approach to trademarking (for example, Starbucks refused to let Ethiopia trademark its coffee, which according to Oxfam cost the country £47million per year).  Ref - http://tinyurl.com/5hkpae. 

According to a survey carried out by The Times in 2008, the ethical record of Starbucks was rated as worse than any other chain apart from McDonalds, KFC and Burger King.

Now I know that a survey is not always accurate, and those surveyed may be basing their answers on perceived reputation rather than fact.  But surely Starbucks has no right positioning itself as an ethical preacher in the face of such perception?

Call me cynical, but Starbucks appears to be playing the ethical card for PR purposes, at the expense of genuine ethics and social responsibility.  While it is a step in the right directiong that 100% of Starbucks coffee is fairtrade, it doesn't take much of a mental leap to compare the (some would say astronomical) prices of a Starbucks cup of coffee with the amount paid to coffee farmers - fairtrade or not. 

What does everyone think about this? Has Starbucks had a moral change of heart? Or is it simply trying to promote an ethical image to appease ethically sensitive customers?