Fair Trade is proving that an economic system that focuses on a triple-bottom line (considering people, planet and profit as equally important outcomes of business operation) can work, and work better, for everyone and everything involved. October is Fair Trade Month and Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Month page says it best: this is indeed "a great opportunity for people throughout the United States to support, promote and celebrate a socially responsible system of trade that prioritizes the needs of human beings and the environment over the drive for profits."

So this is the month to get involved and make some collective noise about economic justice and sustainability. One great way to shout out is to direct a video about Fair Trade for the Connect with Fair Trade Video Contest. Doing so could just end in your visiting a Peruvian Fair Trade farming co-operative courtesy of TransFair. If you make a great video and end up winning, I also suggest you write to GO editor Jeff McIntire-Strasburg and offer to do a write-up of your experience in Peru.

According to TransFair, 56% of people who are aware of Fair Trade make a point to purchase Fair Trade certified products whenever available. Help increase awareness and availability of Fair Trade products by encouraging your local grocery market to carry Fair Trade and participate in the Fair Trade month celebration. TransFair makes it easy with educational marketing materials and contest promotions to intrigue customers.

Perhaps my favorite Fair Trade month promotion joins activism and a great holiday, Halloween. Order your Fair Trade Trick or Treat action kit from Global Exchange, and you’ll have everything you need to tell others just how boo-tiful(!) trade can be: tasty chocolate from Equal Exchange, and knowledge of a better way to trade.

At the very least, talk to your friends and family about this idea, email this article around, whatever little bit you can do to just keep the Fair Trade buzz growing.

There are many excellent resources available online to help you organize and start an effort to educate the retailers in your community. Coffee shops and grocery stores are great places to start. Here are four actions you can take to start planting the seeds of Fair Trade in your community and then grow those seeds into a healthy Fair-Trade-supporting community.

1. Ask. Start planting the seeds by simply ask your local coffee shop and grocery store if they carry any Fair Trade products. With the rising popularity of Fair Trade, the chances that you can find Fair Trade coffee or bananas at the shops you frequent are getting better and better, especially if you live in the UK or Europe.

2. Send a letter to the manager. Global Exchange provides a good template for a letter about Fair Trade coffee to send to the manager of a store you frequent. Oke Bananas will send you request cards that friends, family and other interested consumers can sign and deliver to your grocery store to educate and encourage management to carry their Fair Trade bananas from Central America. Catholic Relief Services and Divine chocolate has a good one-sheet of talking points (PDF) that could form a good letter on why your grocer should carry Fair Trade chocolate.

3. Start a campaign to educate your supermarket. Co-op America and Ox-Fam America have teamed up to put together a great Super Market Campaign Kit. The Kit provides materials, information and practical tips to help you organize a campaign to pressure your supermarket to carry Fair Trade products whereever possible.

4. Nourish your town into a Fair Trade community. Gather a group to help you get your town or city council to pass a purchasing restriction that legally requires local government to use Fair Trade coffee. If you belong to a faith community, encourage the community to incorporate Fair Trade into the official budget (PDF). Finally, TransFair Canada has put together a great document to guide you through the Fair Trade Town (PDF) certification process.

Good luck, and keep us updated on any efforts you might take to help make Fair Trade products more easily accessible in the market!

Safe sex will soon be greener and more fair. The French Letter Condom Company, based in the UK, will open for business at the end of this month offering Fair Trade latex condoms. The latex used to make the condoms is sourced from rubber producers in India and Sri Lanka who have been working with FairDeal Trading, makers of fine Fair Trade sports equipment, for years.

FairDeal Trading is the only company in the world paying a Fair Trade premium for latex rubber. Shymala, a trade union leader at New Ambadi Rubber Estate in India, works with her co-workers to manage an education fund eastablished using the Fair Trade premium. The education fund makes it possible for New Ambadi employees to send their children to more expensive private schools that give the children a good chance to move up the socio-economic ladder. The Fair Trade premium has also allowed New Ambadi to maintain certification with the Forest Stewardship Council for sustainable production.

The French Letter (the name plays off an old British slang term for condoms) has found that 35 per cent of women buy condoms, and the company is convinced that both the feminine design and the ethical aspect of the condoms will appeal to women. Rebecca Taplin from The French Letter Condom Company says: "Our motto is ‘Fairplay’ - so we’re saying have fun, be ethical, be safe and do it with style."

Upon launch of the company at the end of the month you will find more information at www.frenchlettercondoms.co.uk.

via New Consumer

Many of us are working to green our home lives but it is important to bring that green initiative to the workplace as well. Offices generate tons and tons of waste everyday.

The often forgotten first step in any greening process is to reduce the amount of waste generated. Remember reduce, reuse, recycle? Recycling is the last step. Try this: gather up a few of your co-workers from different areas of your office and spend five minutes talking about paper usage habits. I gurantee that you’ll find dozens of ways to reduce paper use in those five glorious earth-saving minutes.

Quick n’ easy ideas to get the ball rolling are to save single-sided prints for note paper (you can even make little note pads using the paper cutter and stapler) and stop printing emails, you really don’t need to, I promise. In 2003, paper and paperboard accounted for 35 percent of the total materials discarded (PDF) in the United States. This is up from 29 percent in 2000. We’re actually discarding more paper than we did before the Web became available  to us civillians. Paper is a great place to start but this process can be applied to just about every office supply you use everyday.

Once you’ve considered how to reduce and resuse your office products more efficiently you can move on to the recycling part of the formula. Again, paper is a great place to start seeing a difference as more than 90 percent of the printing and writing paper made in the US is from virgin tree fiber. One fantastic resource I’ve found that makes it easy to switch to recycled office products is The Green Office, which Kelli mentioned in her great back to school article.

The website explicitly states the recycled content of any given product, even breaking down the post-consumer percentage. The Green Office also lets you know if a product is biodegradable, certified by a third party for some better-than-conventional aspect and if the product uses less chemicals than its conventional counterparts. The Green Office does sell conventionally produced products as a convenience to the consumer (so you don’t have to shop elsewhere) but offers green products wherever it can.

Be sure to place recycling bins in convenient spots all around the office (at the copier, the fax, in each cube, etc). Then, once you’ve used and reused those post-consumer recycled products find a recycler near you to pick up your recycling on a regular basis.

Once you get the ball rolling in your workplace and you make the boss realize the added PR value of going green you might mention that The Green Office also provides sustainability consulting and information about how your office can offset its carbon emissions.

A study conducted by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the UK determined that ethical consumption is limited more by a lack of accessibility and availability than a lack of awareness. Researchers held 12 focus groups representing different socio-economic classes throughout the city of Bristol, and found that, across the spectrum, consumers were aware of ethical consumption options, such as Fair Trade and organic goods. However, the participants cited lack of access to shops and goods as the central reason for not buying ethically sourced products.

One conventional wisdom among those pushing an ethical consumption agenda is that consumption is simply a choice, and with the right information, consumers will choose more ethical products. And while there is certainly truth in this idea, the study shows that, in the UK at least, efforts to educate consumers about Fair Trade and organic options have been thoroughly successful. It also goes on to indicate that consumption choices are influenced by more than just the consumer’s knowledge of ethical choices. Many consumption choices are based on relationships rather than a consumer’s individual choice. People acting as parents or sports fans or caring friends make choices influenced greatly by those relationships. A large portion of consumption is done from within political or private institutions as the background to these activities over which individuals have little influence as consumers. From the Science Daily:

"In order to successfully encourage people to adopt ethical consumption
activities, it is important to call on their specific identities, as
for example a member of the local community or faith group, rather than
just targeting them as ‘faceless’ and ‘placeless’ consumers. The most
successful initiatives are those that find ways of making changes to
the practical routines of consumption. For example, by changing how and
what people buy and from where through establishing initiatives such as
Fairtrade networks or achieving the status of a Fairtrade town or city."

The study highlights the success of the Fair Trade Town movement as an example of an effort that effectively alters the economic infrastructure of towns and cities so that access to ethical products is improved and ethical consumption is mandated for municipal institutions. The organic movement could adopt this model to help bring more organic choices to consumers in towns and cities. And, in any case, we can all learn from this study that attention needs to be given to the vast amount of consumption that happens without the influence of individual consumer choice.

A few months ago Scotland, building off of the Fair Trade Town movement, joined forces with Wales to establish a set of criteria for the two countries to declare themselves the first Fair Trade Nations. The Fair Trade Town idea has proven very effective in securing institutional support for the consumer-driven Fair Trade movement. Hundreds of towns and cities in Scotland and Wales have committed to purchasing Fair Trade products for official municipal use and to assist in educating its citizens about globalization, trade justice and the Fair Trade alternative.

The governments of Scotland and Wales came to support Fair Trade through its popularity with consumers and citizens concerned about growing class divisions in the global economy. First Minister Jack McConnell told the Sunday Herald that he is "determined Scotland will do whatever it can to help end the scandal of poverty in the developing world. Our commitment to fair trade is at the centre of our national effort to help make poverty history."

Wales is well on its way to acheiving the goals it set out for itself
and will become the first Fair Trade nation by the end of this year and Scotland, not far behind, recently appointed a new figurehead to drive the country toward Fair Trade status. Betsy Reid, a veteran campaigner on social and trade justice, took
up her post as Scotland’s first Fair Trade development officer last week. Reid said one of her first orders of business would be to push for required consideration of Fair Trade standards for government procurement contracts worth £8 billion annually in Scotland. This would go beyond the measurable crtieria set for the country to attain Fair Trade status and will face legal challenges from the European Union.

In the interest of background and context, the measurable criteria for Scotland and Wales to become Fair Trade nations are:

• 100 per cent of local authorities to have active Fair Trade groups working towards Fair Trade status
• 55 per cent of local authority areas to have Fair Trade status, with 10% annual increase in following years
• All of Scotland’s cities to have Fair Trade status
• Minimum of 55 per cent of Scottish towns to have active Fair Trade groups working towards Fair Trade status
• 60 per cent of Higher Education institutions to have active Fair Trade groups working towards Fair Trade status
• Increase by 5 per cent each year the proportion of the population who know about Fair Trade (currently 45 per cent)
• 75 per cent of people to buy a Fair Trade product every year
• 40 per cent of people who regularly buy Fair Trade products

Microfinancing, the loaning of small amounts of money to the asset-less poor, garnered worldwide attention last year when one of the leaders in this emerging field, Grameen Bank, and its founder Muhammad Yunus were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Microfinancing reaches out to a massive economic underclass that has been shunned by the international banking and lending system by providing necessary seed capital for small ventures.

It may seem intuitive for some to believe it foolish to loan money to a person with no assets and seemingly little prospect of converting that loan into a profit and repaying it. Grameen Bank has proven that belief to be very wrong indeed. Grameen sees a default rate of only 2% on its small loans to the poor. Compare that to the 4.5% default rate on student loans within two years of beginning repayment in the US. The low default rate vindicated Grameen’s simple founding principle, that “the poor will repay loans.” The reliability of the poor to repay has also helped to make microfinancing economically viable for lending institutions in a competitive free market. In short, microfinancing has been one of the huge successes of social-capitalism.

What has propelled Grameen beyond vindication and to the Nobel Prize is that the vast majority of loan recipients have used the financing to reliably generate assets. Many borrowers, for instance, have started businesses selling phone services in their remote villages. Take the story of Sophia Nalujja (photo reprinted with permission of Grameen Foundation) of Uganda. She
has been a successful borrower from the Grameen Foundation in Uganda for many years, has started a couple businesses and more than quadrupled her farmer’s income. Stories like Sophia’s abound as
microenterprises represent an estimated 80% of total enterprises and 50% of urban enterprises in developing countries, where they are the main source of jobs for poor people.

You, too, can become a microlender at Kiva.org. Kiva provides an easy way for you to connect directly with microenterprise entrepreneurs all over the world. Photographs and thorough descriptions of the loan’s purpose make it fun to just surf around and see what people are doing to improve their lot in life. A typical Kiva loan is for right around $1,000 give or take and you can contribute as little as $25 to any project you wish to fund. Re-payment typically takes one year and you’ll receive a little interest on your investment or you can choose to make your money a gift to the entrepreneur.

Update: Our sister site Planetsave makes micro-loans a part of how they do
business, GO founder and Planetsave publisher Shea Gunther explains the
details here.

The idea of socializing capitalism, an economic system that combines the idea of open market competition with consumer enforced social ends, has been responsible for the steady birth and growth of creative economic institutions that are realizing economic, social and environmental profits. One of the best examples of social-capitalism’s love-children are the social stock exchanges of Brazil, South Africa and one under development in Scotland.

Brazil’s Environmental and Social Investment Exchange (BOVESPA) was the first incarnation of this idea, and was then emulated by the South Africa Social Investment Exchange (SASIX). These organizations very simply list NGOs that are working toward bettering life for the poor and disadvantaged and the health of our environment. One can "invest" in a particular NGO, or give money to a fund that spreads money across NGO projects that are working toward one particular goal, say reducing air pollution. Although BOVESPA and SASIX are organized like a traditional stock market, they really amount to creative ways to raise money for non-profit projects. "Investors" will realize environmental and social profits on their money but no economic profit.

Scotland, however, is taking this idea a step further. The Cabinet Office of Scotland is working with the Royal Bank of Scotland and Credit Suisse, as well
as ethical bank Triodos, to research the feasibility of the first social stock
market, an exchange which would be restricted to for-profit companies with primarily social
and environmental objectives. The exchange would list companies like Fair Trade retailer Traidcraft and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant run by disadvantaged young people in the east end of London. These are profitable businesses that represent a viable economic investment opportunity with social and environmental returns as well.

The establishment of a seperate exchange hosting businesses that pursue a triple bottome line would make it easy for socially-minded investors to find responsible businesses, but it would also help protect the integrity of the business’ mission. "The main concern of social businesses about listing on a mainstream exchange is having their social mission hijacked," said Whitni Thomas, an investment manager at Triodos bank, quoted in The Scotsman.

The economy and businesses are evolving from the narrow focus of basic capitalism toward being more sustainable and just, yet still profitable. The framework of this new economy is being built slowly but surely and Scotland’s new social stock exchange, when launched, will provide another piece of the foundation to be modeled around the world.

Sources: ‘Fair Exchange’ plan for ethical firms

The project is kicking off with a pilot program in Tanzania and is centered around the cultivation and harvest of the jatropha shrub. Jatropha Curcas has been receiving a lot of attention lately as having strong potential as a biofuel. Already India has reserved 11 million hectares of land for jatropha farming and has set agressive goals for national biofuel use. The government of Thailand has also taken the first steps toward embracing jatropha production. Jatropha is being farmed in Africa, Central and South America and the Carribean on smaller scales now and plans to expand farming of the plant are cropping up all over the place. And Smiling Earth Energy, an energy company based in Virginia, plans to process jatropha seeds grown in Mexico in a new $532 million biofuel refinery.

Jatropha produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content. When the seeds are crushed, the resulting oil can be burnt in a standard diesel car, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power electricity plants. According to the World Agroforestry Centre, the jatropha plant is so promising as a biofuel source because it is drought-resistant, thrives even in desert climates and can grow on any type of soil. Also, it does not pose much of a threat to food crops, which is very important for subsistence farming cultures in the rural South. Jatropha seeds are deadly poisonous if ingested and its sap can irritate the skin, but these qualities also make the plant naturally resistant to insect pests and keeps it off the menu of grazing livestock. The plant grows quickly - forming a thick live hedge a month from planting - and is excellent for preventing soil erosion. Jatropha begins to yield from the second year and continues to do so for 40 years.

A study by Dr. Clive Richardson, conducted on behalf of the Royal Government of Thailand concluded that under well-managed circumstances, the massive cultivation of Jatropha curcas in Thailand will have social, economic and environmental benefits for the country: contributing to both fuel and food security. However, in order to ensure that the potential social benefits of jatropha farming are realized it is important to explicitly include basic labor and human rights in the process from the beginning. Fair Trade farming cooperatives provide a well-tested and ever-improving economic model for enforcing these standards where governments have failed for so long.

We’ll keep you updated about the progress of Max Havelaar’s Fair Trade carbon offset project.

Sources:

Could jatropha be a biofuel panacea?

When oil grows on trees

Jatropha seed key to fair trade energy

Biofuel players aim to tap into a fast-growing market

Solar Roast Coffee, a company based in Pueblo, Colorado, is making some of the most ecologically friendly coffee in the world. In fact, Solar Roast has been roasting their Fair Trade organic beans with nothing but the power of the sun since October of 2004.

In the past three years these enterprising innovators have continued to improve their solar roasting technology, and are now using the third iteration of their invention, the Helios 3 (video). The Helios 3 lives completely off-grid and, using an array of focusing mirrors, is able to roast coffee in a drum roaster at up to 600 degerees Farenheit. The entire 10′ by 7′ array swivels and tilts to follow the arc of the sun across the sky. No fossil fuels are required to run the Helios’ fans or motors, and when combined with the use of Fair Trade organic coffee beans, roasts up some beans that are sustainably produced from crop to cup. You can purchase Solar Roast coffee online retail or wholesale and the first Solar Roast coffee shop just opened in Pueblo earlier this year.

The Solar Roaster is simply an improvement on the various working designs of solar ovens. Solar ovens are being used more and more (video) around the world to solve problems ranging from limited fuels to carbon emissions. Most humble solar oven designs can reliably reach tempratures of 300 to 350 degrees Farenheit in about 30 minutes by concentrating the sun’s rays. The larger the solar array the hotter the tempratures. You can use the links above to find low-cost easy-to-build home designs that will reach 450 degrees Farenheit, the minimum temprature to roast coffee.

Co-op America is a large member organization that works to harness the strength of consumers, investors, businesses and the
marketplace to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable
society. The Fair Trade cause was a perfect fit for Co-op Amierca’s mission and the organization serves as patron and parent to the Fair Trade Federation in the United States. Co-op America has recently released a "Guide to Fair Trade" (PDF) which is the best resource I’ve seen if you are just starting to learn about Fair Trade or you’re looking for a way to introduce family and friends to the idea of Fair Trade.

The guide begins with a thorough overview of the Fair Trade principles and how those principles are enforced and checked. It also includes vingettes on Fair Trade producer groups around the world. The guide gives the reader a glimpse at the widening array of Fair Trade produtcs now available which go beyond flagship products coffee and chocolate to include spices, fresh fruits, wine, sugar, vanilla and even sports balls. A directory is included so you will know to which shops you should begin shifting your consumption in support of Fair Trade.

If you are willing to contribute more to the cause of economic justice than your dollars the guide provides suggestions and steps on how you can take action. Co-op America’s current action focus is on opening the North American market for Fair Trade bananas which is logistically ripe for explosive growth. Fair Trade bananas have been available in North America since 2004 when market leader Oke Bananas opened for business (see the Guide to Fair Trade for a profile of this young company). In Europe, where Fair Trade fruit has been available since the mid-90s,
sales of Fair Trade bananas have been growing at a rate of about 50
percent a year.

The Fair Trade movement began in North America with small non-profit and church-affiliated organizations buying high-quality hancrafted goods from small cooperating groups of women, and bringing them directly to market in the U.S. and Canada. At the same time in Eurpoe, Dutch organization Max Havelaar began importing coffee from small coffee co-operatives in the South. The emphasis was on direct, long-term trade relationships with small, democratically organized co-operatives. The mere size of the organizations involved in these relationships acted as a guradian of integrity. Now that larger organizations with different core values are involved on both sides, some in the Fair Trade movement are worried that it will no longer be able to deliver on its promises to producers and consumers.

Equal Exchange, a pioneer and Fair Trade market leader in the U.S. since 1986, is trying to remind the newcomers to the movement of its heritage. The small vs. large producer dichotomy is most pronounced in the Fair Trade tea market, where 99% of Fair Trade tea is sourced from large plantations. In a move it says is "intended to catalyze changes in the tea industry", Equal Exchange announced on Wednesday the availability of seven new organic, Fair Trade teas sourced almost entirely from democratic co-operatives of small-scale growers in India, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Equal Exchange says it "seeks to demonstrate to both the tea industry and the tea-drinking public that small farmers, and their co-operatives, can produce a variety of excellent, organic teas."

Co-founder and Executive Director Rink Dickinson recently visited two of Equal Exchange's tea partners in India and South Africa, and described the new initiative this way:

Unlike with some other foods or beverages, the small-scale tea grower continues to be overlooked and is never thought about. Our goals are to put the small farmer back into the picture, create an alternative economic model with them, and to show the wider world just how wonderful their tea can be.

Equal Exchange will also show the wider world just how a large wholesaler such as itself can sucessfully source tea from many small cooperatives. De-centralizing production by working with small cooperatives will de-centralize wealth, which is exactly one end the Fair Trade movement has sought since its inception. I applaud Equal Exchange for reminding us all of that goal at this critical time in the evolution of Fair Trade.

Social entrepreneurs try to make an economic profit while simultaneously generating a social profit, too. Do well by doing good is the social entrepreneur's mantra. An innovative new website, Greendeavor.com, is attempting to do just that. While Greendeavor is indeed very green (it's in early beta), the inspirations and ideas behind the site make it chock full of potential.

Greendeavor is primarily a shopping site with a green twist. When you login to Greendeavor, you can browse through categorized lists of companies rated from poor to outstanding in nine different social and environmental areas, including impact on climate, sustainability, fair workplace, transparency and green shipping. When you click through to one of these participating sites and make a purchase, Greendeavor makes a little money for the sales referral and you earn rewards points for every dollar you spend. A minimum of 70% of that referral money goes toward funding rewards for Greendeavor shoppers, like gift certificates to Wild Oats and iTunes, but, in a final green twist, some of that money also goes toward offsetting your carbon footprint.

When you first create an account at the site you're asked to either assume you're an average American who spews 21 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year (twice that of the average European) or to use Greendeavor's carbon calculator to more accurately assay your annual greenhouse gas impact. As you earn rewards points, you also earn carbon offsets: when your personal carbon meter reaches zero (that is, when you've earned enough offsets to negate your carbon impact), every rewards point you earn for the rest of the year is doubled.

But Greendeavor is not simply a shopping referral site; it also aims to be a social networking success like any good web 2.0 application. You can also earn rewards points and carbon offsets for posting green tips, reviewing products and companies, referring friends to the site and much more.

Greendeavor is brand spanking new and a few of its central features are not yet fully in place. But you've got to love the ideas driving the site plus if you get in on it at this early date you can rack up your rewards points simply by referring your friends to the site!

The small town of Brattleboro, Vermont recently announced that it has met the criteria to declare itself a Fair Trade Town. Brattleboro is the second Fair Trade Town in the United States and the third in North America after Woflville, Nova Scotia became the second in April and Media, Pensylvania led the way in January.

The creative Fair Trade Town campaign, which has helped to spread the word about the Fair Trade movement, began in Garstang, England in 1999. At its inception local representative George Foulkes set the bar high for the future of the campaign:

It is a great initiative by Garstang. Not just on behalf of myself, nor just on behalf of the department for International Development, but on behalf of the government I would really like to welcome what is a great initiative… I want to try to ensure that the initiative is followed in many other towns and cities throughout the whole of the United Kingdom and beyond, so that the beacon that has started in Garstang can spread like wildfire through the whole of the country.

His vision is slowly coming to fruition. Over 250 towns and cities are declared to be Fair Trade Towns in the UK and Europe. But what does it mean? Towns and cities that are Fair Trade Towns have met or pledged to meet five goals (PDF), summarized here:

• Sign a resolution pledging to serve only Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate at city meetings or in municipal offices.
• The town has a minimum number of retail outlets, based on population, offering at least two fair trade goods.
• As many of the town's major employers as possible have committed to using Fair Trade products.
• The town commits to promoting Fair Trade in cooperation with the local media.
• The town council forms a steering committee to direct promotion efforts and maintain commitment to the goals.

Most every Fair Trade Town resolution also cites a commitment to buying locally produced goods when available as well. The Fair Trade Towns movement is a shining example of grassroots organization and the power of communities to embrace and promote new ideas. In fact the Fair Trade Towns campaign has been so effective throughout the UK that Scotland and Wales have laid out mutual goals toward which to work for Fair Trade Nation status, which includes every town working toward Fair Trade Town status and over half having already achieved it.

This is the resolution to a row that Starbucks began last year when the Ethiopian government filed applications to trademark its most famous coffee names. Securing the rights to these names would enable Ethiopia to capture more value from trade, by controlling their use in the market and thereby enabling farmers to receive a greater share of the retail price. Ethiopia’s coffee industry and farmers could earn an estimated $88 million USD extra per year, no small pittance when you consider that millions of Ethiopian coffee farmers bring home less than $300 USD per year for their crops.

In response, Starbucks successfully blocked Ethiopia's trademark applications in the US through some crafty maneuvering. According to Oxfam, the global coffee giant enlisted the support of the National Coffee Association to assist in blocking Ethiopia's bid. And it worked. In refusing Ethiopia its trademark, the US Patent and Trademark Office cited a position directly from the Starbucks' sponsored NCA letter of protest: The names Ethiopia wanted to trademark were "generic."

This move was good for Starbucks, which had been using the names of Ethiopia's famous coffee regions to sell roasted Ethiopian coffee for up to $26 per pound while farmers in Yirgacheffe were receiving as little as $0.60 to $1.40 per pound for their coffee. This angered international activist groups, including UK-based OxFam, which started a campaign to embarrass Starbucks for its blatant attempt to get richer off the backs of the poor and disadvantaged farmers who have lived for thousands of years in the regions that bear the profitable names in question. I participated in the campaign last November by handing out information to Starbucks employees in my hometown about the shameless profit-seeking, and having them and passers-by sign a petition. The campaign, which created consumer and even employee pressure, worked, and Starbucks announced a mutual agreement on Wednesday.

The agreement gives Ethiopia the marketing rights to the names of its coffee-producing regions while agreeing to contract out those rights to Starbucks for an undisclosed amount. Starbucks has also agreed to build a cupping laboratory in Ethiopia to help farmers improve the taste and quality of their coffee, which should help increase the value of Ethiopia's vital export. The company has also pledged to double purchases of coffee from East Africa by 2008. Starbucks currently buys 2% of Ethiopia’s $400 million coffee crop.

Sources: A Hot Cup of Money, Starbucks in Ethiopia coffee row, Starbucks in accord with Ethiopia

U.S. trade policy can have huge impacts on the environment and on the general sustainability of the global and local economies. This congressional session has seen a lot of behind-the-scenes debate about trade policy. In early May some Democratic leaders including Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Finance Committee Chariman Max Baucus announced they had reached a tentative deal in secret negotiations with the Bush administration on four pending Free Trade Agreements.

These Democrats claimed that the deal, the details of which have never been made public, includes Bush administration concessions on the environment and labor rights while the Democrats would agree to attempt to renew Bush's fast track negotiating authority. Under the Constitution, Congress has authority over international-trade agreements. But lawmakers have long delegated that authority to the executive branch, under a process designed to streamline consideration and avoid major fights over deals fraught with complexity and political controversy.

However, fast track only allows congress an up or down vote on trade deals restricting its ability to influence the details of trade deals while greatly empowering corporate interests and lobbyists to influence them. This method of establishing trade policy has wreaked havoc on the environment and long ignored the rights of laborers in disadvantaged economies, simply because it so empowers corporations which value short-term profits above sustainability and human rights.

The deal the Democrats announced a little over a month ago claims to have provisions for protecting the environment and laborers' rights. These provisions, as far as anyone can tell so far, amount to the ability for U.S.-based organizations to petition Congress on violations of international standards in these areas, but falls far short of allowing multinational environmental interests or labor unions to sue in international courts. Corporations have been allowed to sue in international courts any organization, including labor unions, who might impede profits. This double-standard is a by-product of undemocratic trade negotiations that give corporations far more power than citizens.

Fortunately, it appears that Pelosi's deal with the Bush administration is not catching on with many other Democrats. Some estimates have as many of three-quarters of House Dems voting against renewal of fast track authority and the various pending free trade agreements. The global economy, and, hence, U.S. Trade policy, has immeasurable impact on our environment and the integrity of life for every human. If we are going to realize the kind of change necessary to rerverse climate change and establish a global culture of human rights we will all need to start demanding a say in the development of our trade policy.

I'll keep an eye on the development of the pending trade agreements as they continue to progress.

Sources: WorkingForChange, Bush's Shrinking Global Trade Agenda (WSJ), EyesOnTrade, WashBlog.

As the Fair Trade movement continued to grow the idea of a certified label spread to other countries participating in the movement until most countries in Europe, the U.S. and Canada had established third-party labelling organizations. In 1997 these labelers created an umbrella organization, the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, with the mission to "set the Fairtrade Standards, support, inspect and certify disadvantaged producers and harmonize the Fairtrade message across the movement."

Today 20 independent labelling organizations are members of FLO, in the U.S. TransFair USA is the FLO certifying organization. These organizations certify an ever growing list of commodities including coffee, tea, sugar, fresh fruits, cocoa, rice and vanilla. These products are certified before they are imported into participating markets and are then given the right to use the Fair Trade label on packaging.

However, not all products lend themselves to Fair Trade certification the way farmed commodities do. Although coffee has been Fair Trade's flagship product, sales of fairly traded arts and handcrafts have grown significantly over the past five years. These products are not certified by a member of FLO and do not carry a Fair Trade label.

Instead organizations of retailers and wholesalers who offer goods that adhere to the clearly established Fair Trade criteria have been formed to monitor businesses as opposed to products. For example the Fair Trade Federation in the U.S. is an association of hundreds of businesses that have agreed to follow the principles of Fair Trade for 100% of their inventory.

All this means that, as a consumer, you need to look or ask for one of two guarantees that the product you are thinking of purchasing is indeed Fair Trade. Look for either the FLO or TransFairUSA certification mark on the packaging of the product or, if you are shopping for arts and crafts in the U.S., look for the Fair Trade Federation logo in the window of the business or ask the owner if the shop is a member of the Fair Trade Federation.

Sources: FLO International, Fair Trade Federation, TransFairUSA

The movie has helped to bring energy and attention to reforming diamond operations with the goal of reinvesting more diamond money into the infrastructure and economies of these ruined nations. At the New York International Diamond Conference in February earlier this year an idea emerged to apply Fair Trade standards to the diamond industry in Africa as a first step toward reformation. During the conference Ed Zwick, producer of Blood Diamond, issued a passionate calling out of the diamond industry that inspired quick action.

The Rapaport Report, a leading diamond industry publication, wasted no time in working with the government of South Africa, the Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International and private diamond companies in bringing to market the first Fair Trade diamonds. The diamonds were on display last weekend at the Rapaport Fair Trade Conference held in Las Vegas.

Participants in the conference noted this year's marked difference in the industry's acceptance of ethical trade in diamonds and gems, no doubt in part to the influence of Blood Diamond combined with the rapid growth of Fair Trade and increasing consumer awareness.

Eric Braumwart, CEO of Columbia Gem House, a manufacturer of Fair Trade gems, noted how far the concept of ethical jewelry had evolved over the past few years. Recalling the scant interest in such jewelry at previous conferences as little as five years ago, he shared how some retailers had embraced the concept at this year’s JCK show. “This is the first show where we have had retailers walk into our booth and say ‘We’re ready to buy—we want to buy the concept,’ he said.

The South African diamond trade is already much more standardized and benign to the lives of laborers than its West African counterparts making it more easily certified. Now that a model exists in South Africa the work must begin to export Fair Trade certification and its accompanying improvements for diamond mine laborers and basic infrastructure improvements to the countries that desperately need the reform. And we can also hope that Fair Trade's focus on sustainable production will also help this historically dirty and environmentally indifferent business clean up its act.

Fair Trade is certainly not perfect, and I think in the honest interest of bettering the global economy, we are obligated to highlight its failures when they become apparent, and offer suggestions for improvement. We've discussed some other failures in previous posts and comments but a recent allegation in the UK highlights one of the major shortcomings of the movement in accomplishing its goal of a fairer trade system for the global economy's most disadvantaged citizens.

The BBC reported on May 23rd that workers at Pratt's Bananas, the UK's largest banana ripener (yes, they buy bananas, import and ripen them), and a ripener of some Fair Trade bananas, has been exploiting workers in just the ways Fair Trade attempts to stem. Workers complained of working six to seven days a week for 10-12 hour shifts, sometimes without breaks, if they did not meet strict quotas. One woman is taking the company to an industrial tribunal claiming her forced exertion caused her to miscarry.

These are eye-opening allegations and exemplify the common criticism of Fair Trade: it's certifications and standards are not always applied to the entire supply chain. While farm cooperatives in disadvantaged nations are certified and monitored annually, the importers are not always held to the same strict standards or monitoring. While such working conditions are illegal in the UK and the US, they certainly do exist in both countries. All of this raises the serious question of whether or not you can truly call a product Fair Trade with a straight face when the migrant workers in an unmonitored piece of the supply chain are being exploited. I think the easy and honest answer is no.

Fair Trade attempts to diminish this flaw by encouraging direct relationships between producers and retailers, but this is not always possible. Bananas, for instance, virtually require at least one middleperson to import, ripen and distribute to retail outlets. In this, and other similar cases, it seems essential for Fair Trade labeling organizations to develop ways to monitor the entire life of a Fair Trade product. If they cannot accomplish this, the label ought to make clear that the bananas were grown and picked under Fair Trade conditions but the certification ends there. And if they cannot accomplish even this, the only right thing to do would be to stop certifying products that are not unquestionably Fair Trade from crop to kitchen.

Sources: BBC - Banana firm 'exploits migrant workers'

EBay UK

Browsing around, you can find information in the dozen or so Fair Trade sellers listed on the portal now (many of the UK's pioneering Fair Trade brands are there) as well as information about Fair Trade broken down by region. Each region highlights a Fair Trade artisan cooperative with its story and photographs. A couple of clicks in and your taken to the familiar eBay product listing where you'll be able to easily stay in the Fair Trade realm of eBay UK with quick links to all certified sellers as well as category links.

It's great to see one of the Internet's shopping giants embrace Fair Trade in this manner. It makes business sense that eBay is trying this out in the UK first as Fair Trade is much more established there than it is in the US. However, it would be nice to see this feature appear for US-based Fair Trade retailers. You can contact eBay (you can proceed as a 'Guest' at the Login prompt) telling them how much you'd like to see a similar portal for the US.