At the simplest level, this means that more of what people consume comes from distant regions through complex transactions hidden from ordinary view. While most of us cannot escape participating in commodity chains, we can participate with greater or less insight and responsibility. That's a choice open to all consumers, obviously. Promoting insight and responsibility is a mission that higher education claims a speciality in, so it is appropriate to ask how those institutions act in their role as consumers. On a range of issues, colleges and universities set standards for themselves higher than the law requires or the market delivers.
Hate speech is one recent example.
Coffee grown under one set of conditions makes a major contribution to species biodiversity and to the well-being of growers and workers. Coffee grown under another set of conditions contributes to species loss, land erosion, the poisoning of aquifers, and health risks to workers. So coffee is an excellent site for exploring how consumer choices in one corner of the globe impact working conditions and environmental outcomes in another. In a typical year the United States buys a third of all the coffee traded internationally and no other country buys more than a tenth. The average U.S. coffee drinker consumes three cups a day, which over the year adds up to the production of some twenty to thirty coffee plants.