The researchers studied coffee and asked consumers to determine how much they would pay for ethically produced coffee; how much they would pay for coffee produced by an unethical company and then tested at what level a product is considered ethically produced.

There were a variety of different permutations in the study but the results were a bit surprising!

Consumers, in general will pay more for ethically produced goods

Consumers, at the moment don’t care if it’s 100% ethically produced or 5% ethically produced…they’ll pay the same premium

Very aware consumers, as in aware of what ethically produced means and who care about it are willing to pay a bigger premium for ethically produced goods.

Some consumers will still by products even if they are unethically produced…if the price is right!

In general I didn’t find much of this surprising except that consumers didn’t really seem to be wiling to pay a higher price for MORE ethically produced goods. Though, on second though, this isn’t all that surprising since our Byzantine labeling system makes it hard to understand what producing ethically means in the first place.

Bad news in the short run for social entrepreneurs who place a priority on doing good, as opposed to doing well (making money) but, in the long run, the general public will become better informed and highly ethical goods will be able to demand a premium.

Related Posts:

Survey Says: Consumers Will Pay More For Green Products

Times They Are a Changing: Green Marketing Tips for Eco Entrepreneurs in 2008

Hippocratic Oath for Green Business Leaders - Beyond Ghettoized MBA Curriculums

Natural Marketing Institute, Nielsen Value LOHAS Mart At $209 bn

Desperately Seeking Certification – Is It Worth It For Eco-Entrepreneurs?

Image Credit: kkoshy at Flickr under Creative Commons License

I am in LOVE with this company, Speesees, which provides fun and stylish children’s things from beautiful kimono onesies to au natural baby hat. Here are the other reasons to love this Eco-conscious and green company.

• It’s manufactured under fair trade practices in India and the owner has developed a close relationship with the farmers who live bio-dynamically and receive health care.
• Everything is made from handpicked organic cotton, and knit and dyed with low impact dyes. All the products are made sweatshop free. “Natural light floods the premises and our energetic team, including disabled members, work decent hours for fair living wages. An organic garden surrounds the premises.”
• They give back to the community by donating $1 to every $100 earned from online retail orders. The company has also implemented a recycling program.

the scoop: when your baby outgrows his/her speesees, if you return the clothing to us, we will donate it on your behalf` to one of several grateful organizations in the area to be used by the children of disadvantaged women.

and the added perk is that you can get a deep discount on your next purchase towards those organic baby yoga pants. (Downward dog has never looked cuter).

The company was founded by Rachel Pearson, a natural cotton  diaper baby and a child of environmentally minded parents. Whereas her classmates were raised on wonderbread and fruit rollups; Pearson defied convention with whole wheat bread on recycled wax paper. But the natural upbringing has made Pearson a wildly successful ecotrepreneur, and someone who truly cares about the plights of this Earth.

Let this be an inspiration to raise Eco-minded little babies who grow up to be a compassionate and caring adults who strive to make a difference in this world. Speesees tagline is “We are in this together” We are indeed.

The mats are washable (just run them under a hose), reversible, and really comfy underfoot. The flat weave and soft tubular threads won’t mildew or stain. I’ve had one on my sun-soaked deck in Los Angeles for nearly five years, and it hasn’t faded one bit (ah, the upside of plastic’s longevity!).

Available in a variety of colors and patterns. Small (4′x6′) is $45; Medium (5′x8′) is $89, Large (6′x9′) is $110, and Runners (30 in. wide, and 7′ to 8′ long, depending on pattern) are $45. All available at www.pot-ted.com (323.665.3801).

(Photo courtesy of Mary Gray)

I really only drink two things - water and tea. And I’m pretty fussy about the quality of each. Since I gave up the sauce (caffeine that is), I’ve been enjoying Yerba Mate as my new primary tea source. Guayaki sent me some samples to review for the magazine and I am now addicted to their Organic Yerba Mate. Not an awful addiction as addictions go. The company is a cool triple bottom line, fairtrade, responsible and sustainable company.

As my friend, Sustainable Lifestyle Guru and Karmakonsum founder Christoph Harrach states, the Green Fashion movement is a web2.0 movement. He calls it “Eco2.0″. Weather it’s true or not globally, in Germany most cool green fashion labels available are sold online.

Some labels go even further and let their customers be part of their communities deciding over styles, models, and where the money spent for charity goes to. Fair Trade clothing sold over music labels, online design contests, innovative ideas are getting so normal that we don’t even react. But isn’t it great to not only decide for wearing great clothes with a conscious feel, but also being able to connect to your clothing labels within social communities? In the end social fashion is starting to mean more than organic cotton, it can meanwhile mean that you as a costumer decide how the new collection looks!

One of my German favorites here are Armed Angels, who have a radical community approach combined with high ecological and social standards of their production and Fairliebt (”Fairly in love”), who sell simple Fair Trade shirts with a strong feeling for a new community of young, conscious buyers with a dedication to great style.

An another very innovative approach has the (not German) eco-fashion surf label NVOHK, who claim to be not only community based but community managed. You get your investments in the company back in shirts. 35% of the profits goes back to the people taking part in the community.

Internationally there has been a boom of new online selling green fashion labels, online boutiques and webshops. I counted over thousand green fashion brands and designers on the internet by now. The internet is taking over our daily fashions. Styles are spotted over blogs, and dedicated online fashionistas influence their beloved fashion designers without even knowing it.

Can we say we are changing the world, just by doing the same thing we always do: sitting behind our computers pressing about 60 different buttons all the time? Yes, we can! We are just doing it. Here the social fashion revolution starts. With a simple mouse click you become a green fashion chick. And if you like, you even decide what shirt is designed to be ready for you next month…

Hope Spinnery has prided itself on being as eco-friendly as possible: the fiber processing mill is run completely on wind power captured on-site; all fibers are purchased locally from sustainably-dedicated Maine farms; only Earth-friendly soaps and natural dyes are used on the yarns; by-products from the spinning process are reused elsewhere at the mini-factory.

The company’s yarn, made from mostly wool and alpaca, are available by skein and in 6 different patterns kits (5 hats and 1 mitten pattern to choose from). Hope Spinnery recently launched their online store, so you can see the stock they have right away and choose the color and fiber that would be perfect for your next project.

“We believe that each person’s relationship to fiber, art and life is unique. We respect the individuality of our customers and work with each person to create something original and satisfying. Our commitment is to process fiber and create yarn through natural methods while enjoying ourselves every step of the way. Hope Spinnery is about doing what you love and meeting others along the way who are doing the same,” says their website - spoken like true fiber-lovers.

Along with spinning their own collection of yarns, Hope Spinnery also offers custom processing services for any fiber you provide. Want to try spinning yourself (it is more fun than I expected)? Check out Autumn’s recent post about the art and process of hand-spinning yarn.

Who makes your favorite sustainable yarns?

Which natural fiber is your favorite to work with? (i.e. cotton, wool, bamboo, hemp … etc.)

Let us know what you love to create with and we might feature them in the next installment of Yearn-Worthy Yarns!

• Green Gift Ideas: Stubby Pencil Studio is now carrying wooden toys. The Spinny Speller is great for teaching children phonemic awareness and reminds me of the homemade phonics mediators my grandmother used to make for her first graders. The Made By Me wooden kits are perfect for little hands to decorate and assemble. Both toys are made in the USA. Stubby Pencil recycled cards and eco-art supplies also make nice additions to your child’s Easter basket. The cards now come in eco-friendly packaging consisting of a custom button/string tie envelope made from 30% post consumer recycled paper and green seal certified.
• Avoid food coloring and dye your eggs naturally Check out Autumn’s great post on “The Incredible, Edible Egg Dye” and last year’s posts by Phillip (”Weekly DIY: Natural Dyes for Coloring Eggs“) and myself (”Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs“).
• Give your child a book instead of candy; Whole World by Christopher Corr and Fred Penner is a new children’s book based upon the gospel spiritual originally sung by African American pianist and composer Margaret Bonds (1913-1972). We’ve reviewed a lot of great, green children’s literature on Eco Child’s Play that would be perfect for your child.
• Fair Trade basket, no plastic: Green Mom Finds featured this week a Fair Trade basket called the Bolga Basket. It is hand-made of straw by a local artisan weaver in the town of Bolgatanga, Ghana in West Africa and is colored with plant extracts. You and your child are sure to find a use for this basket long after the Easter egg hunt ends.

Skip the plastic eggs and fill your child’s basket with eco-friendly goodies this year. You can help the Easter Bunny leave a smaller footprint while pleasing your children! For more ideas, please visit my post from last spring titled “Prayer Flags for Easter“.

Image courtesy of Stubby Pencil Studio.

Wikipedia explains fair trade quite clearly as “an organized social movement and market-based approach to alleviating global poverty and promoting sustainability. The movement promotes the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production.” Based in Oneonta, New York, the Da’vida Fair Trade Store sells its own line of hand painted and hand spun yarns made from alpaca, wool and yak fibers.

Painted by Lisa Meriam, a sheep farmer who lives in upstate New York, Da’vida’s collection of yarns come uncolored from Uruguay, Bolivia and Peru. All of the yarns are certified by the Fair Trade Federation, ensuring an extensive number of trade and development points are met. Upon arriving in New York, Lisa then paints the yarns by hand with all natural dyes. Also available are hanks of yarn hand spun by Lisa from her own sheep’s wool. Currently, every hank of yarn is unique, though Da’vida is working on a more predictable line of colors.

“Da’vida, the ‘giving of life’, or ‘the life of giving’ reflects the basic philosophy of Da’vida, that of receiving a gift, and then passing that gift along to other,” says the store’s website. When it comes to creating knitted or crocheted creations, these concepts go hand in hand (no pun intended).

Who makes your favorite sustainable yarns?

Which natural fiber is your favorite to work with? (i.e. cotton, wool, bamboo, hemp … etc.)

Let us know what you love to create with and we might feature them in the next installment of Yearn-Worthy Yarns!

Energy Star -for appliances and electronics

USDA Organic Seal - for food and personal care items among others

Green Seal - for household cleaning products

Forest Stewardship Council - for wood and paper products

Fair Trade Mark – for a variety of products

Unfortunately there are also look-a-likes too, such as: Sustainable Forestry Initiative – developed by the timber industry. In fact many, if not most, large companies and trade groups have put together coalitions, certifications and labeling standards that appear to stamp products as, “green” when they perhaps only mean… trying to be green at best and greenwashing at worst.

“Certification becomes meaningless when there are no hard fast standards, no single governing body and no established definitions. Serious green consumers make their purchases by researching companies and shopping where they can rely on the selection,” says Beth Mandel of T&S partners , a PR agency that counts ecopreneurs as clients.

So where does that leave eco-entrepreneurs? Obtaining certification can be time consuming and is often beyond the reach, monetarily for entrepreneurs just starting out.

Gigi Perdraza, of Inca Kids explained the conundrum facing entrepreneurs just starting out.

If you want to be certified by the FTF (Fair Trade Federation) you have to be in business at least 180 days, present a financial statement (usually a tax return), strive to sell 100% fair trade products and submit at least 3 recommendations from people that know in depth the fair trade practices you are claiming. This poses a constraint for small businesses like mine against other retailers with lots of financial resources for several reasons:

- Without certification for the first 6 months or more, it is very hard to show your commitment and create trust.

-You have to have a significant budget for marketing/advertising to compete against established retailers that are already running and have all the certifications.

-It takes time to develop relationships with people (other than your suppliers) that can confirm your fair trade practices.

Other entrepreneurs find that certification standards don’t go far enough and choose to eschew certification all together. Many feel that the standards they practice far exceed those of certification.

Michael Pollan author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma said ” … in recent years organic has grown to include paradoxes such as the organic factory farm and the organic TV dinner. And now, there is even organic high-fructose corn syrup. We are not far from organic Coca-Cola.”

Where do you stand on this issue? Did you choose to apply for certification? What do you see as the positives and negatives of obtaining certification?

I am not selling products; I am offering the opportunity to directly support a poor family in Peru every time you buy something. With every purchase you are saying YES to an artisan interested in keeping his or her lifestyle; you are saying YES to that single mother trying to make a living while taking care of her children, you are saying YES to all of them when you choose to buy fair trade.

My family recently received three wonderful products from Inca Kids made from 100% alpaca wool or 100% Peruvian cotton and eco-friendly color dyes. These handmade goods are made from artisans. The finger puppets are a big hit with my children, who immediately got out the puppet theater and put on a grand show when they arrived. My three-year-old son, who hates to wear hats, loves his Inca Kids hat! My daughter is enamored with her Cholita doll (thank goodness it’s not a Disney Princess) and wants to ask our Peruvian friend Cecilia if she has a dress like the doll’s. She took Cholita to school to show her first grade class, which prompted a discussion at home about Peru, fair trade, and the Incas in preparation.

I like my children’s toys to be unique and handmade. By supporting artisans and not large toy corporations, I am living more sustainably and teaching my children to appreciate human crafts. Inca Kids bridges that gap between the artisans in Peru and my family’s green values.

Happy Green Bee clothing comes in bright, colorful patterns. Not only is their clothing line cheerful, comfortable, and playful, but it is also ecologically responsible. Founder Roxanne Quimby explains,

We created Happy Green Bee so that a child can be a child, first and foremost. By using organic cotton, a comfortable and practical fabric, and simple bee-striped patterns, children feel as comfortable as they look, while their parents take a small step in making a big difference in the environment their children will live in.

The green cotton knit clothing of Happy Green Bee is very soft. The bold stripes makes it easy to mix and match the separates to create your own ensemble. Even the buttons are made from post-consumer recycled plastic. There are many reasons to chose organic cotton over commercially grown fiber. According to Happy Green Bee,

• 90 million acres of worldwide agricultural lands are devoted to the production of cotton, consuming 25% of all pesticides used on our planet.

• Genetically modified seed accounts for 50% of cotton grown in the United States. We can only speculate about the unintended and unforeseen consequences of genetic engineering.

• Petroleum based hydrocarbons (chemical fertilizers) are intensively applied to cotton crops to artificially speed up and otherwise “enhance” the plant’s growth cycle and productivity. The runoff of these compounds pollute our watersheds and food chains.

Happy Green Bee is also expanding to include organically grown cotton toys. The Abbee Doll comes adorned in Happy Green Bee stripes, so your child can have an outfit to match his/her beloved doll. If you care about the planet and you care about your child’s health, Happy Green Bee is a excellent, eco-conscious choice for your family.

Your might remember Rodale’s Organic Style Magazine, which ran from 2001 to 2005, acting as a vital source of information for consumers during the early stages of the second coming of the environmental movement. Bought by sustainable flower innovator Organic Bouquet in May of this year, I interviewed Organic Bouquet’s CEO Gerald Prolman not long after the deal was made public. Launched just a few days ago, Organic Style is primed to become a top eco-shopping destination.

“All the products sold on the site will be either certified organic, transition to organic, bio-dynamic, sustainable, Fair Trade or a new category we call ‘not certified but worthy.’ To help get the word out, we plan re-launch the Organic Style magazine in the second quarter of 2008. We plan to initially publish the Organic Style magazine quarterly and offer it as a free OrganicStyle.com customer benefit. We want to give our customers information that will be valuable in their lives, that will help them make informed decisions about a balanced and responsible way to live and celebrate life,” said Gerald Prolman in our August interview.

As expected, Organic Style offers a breathtaking variety of flowers, wreathes, and plants - my personal favorites are the charitable bouquets, which give a percentage of each purchase price to each bouquet’s non-profit organization. The holiday section offers seasonal gift baskets, wreathes, and gifts for your favorite canine (hopefully they’ll had some feline offerings too). As a bit of a sweets fiend, I was instantly drawn to the organic holiday sugar cookies and organic gingerbread cookies gift baskets. If gift baskets are your favorite way to give gifts, make sure to check out the gourmet section of Organic Style, which has nearly 30 different eco-combinations.

Even after the holidays have passed, Organic Style is a bookmark-able shopping destination for green wardrobe, gardening, and bed & bath goods (I’ve already got my eyes on their beautifully colored organic blankets). With my eco-fashion business focus, I couldn’t help but be impressed by their apparel category that offers non-nonsense, well-designed garments and accessories.

Though most of us don’t need an extra incentive to shop, Organic Style has a built-in eco-points program. Every time you make a purchase on the Organic Style site, your earn eco-points (1 point for each dollar spent). For every 10 points your earn, you can use them for $1 off a future purchase. Upon reaching a few hundreds points, you can also redeem your eco-points for free flower bouquets to help brighten your (or someone else’s) day.

Do you have a favorite online green store? Share your choice shopping destinations in the comments section and they will be considered for the next installment of Green Shopping Spotlight.

• Daily Tip: Halloween with Less Waste,
• Green Style How-To: Supermarket and No-Sew Halloween Costumes,
• Five Super-Simple Steps to Green Trick-or-Treating,
• Daily Tip: Wholesome Sweets

By now you may be groaning, "Oh no, not another green Halloween post about making your own costume and giving out pencils," yet this green idea flips the holiday over on the concept of Fair Trade.

Think about Fair Trade in the simplest terms, as a young child may define it. If I give you something, in exchange you will give me something of equal value, whether monetary or not. For example, children trading marbles will exclaim, "That is not fair," if they do not view the marble exchange as equitable. In a child's mind, Halloween is not an equitable trade... they make out like bandits while trick-or-treating! All they have to do is sport a costume and knock on their neighbors' doors to receive lots and lots of candy! It is definitely not a Fair Trade! Global Exchange proposes a change to this custom by promoting "reverse" trick-or-treating.

1. Create your costume from your own wardrobe, borrow items from friends, and shop thrift stores! If you have children, you probably already have their costumes picked out. If you are an adult, you probably do not have a costume idea yet. Some of my favorite costumes from childhood used my parent’s clothes with make up and wigs or were made out of sheets.
2. Give out organic treats! Hand out organic lollipops or organic chocolate ladybugs. I plan to give these items to my few neighbors to give to my children in advance, as we live in such an isolated place that my children will be the only trick-or-treaters they see all night.
3. Walk! Taking a walking tour of the neighborhood, knocking on everyone’s doors while wearing costumes is great fun. Traveling by car not only adds carbon to the atmosphere, it also wrinkles costumes and takes the exercising out of trick-or-treating. If children are going to eat candy, they need to walk!

Here are a few suggestions from others:

Dr. Sears:
Remember that most treats handed out are Red Light Foods and can lead to stomachaches and bad behaviour. Most Kids won’t eat all their candy so a majority of it gets thrown away once forgotten about.

Here are some non red light treat ideas to get you started thinking:

• Small boxes of cereal
• Cheese and cracker packages
• Sugar-free gum
• 100% Juice box packages
• Small packages of nuts or raisins
• A package of instant cocoa mix
• Non-food treats such as: Stickers, toys, crayons, pencils, colored chalk, erasers, baseball cards, rubber spiders, temporary tattoos, false teeth, little bottles of bubbles and small games, like tiny decks of cards (party-supply stores can be great sources for these)

Out of sight, out of mind - Keep your child’s candy on a top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. This way, your child must ask for it and you can keep better track of how much they eat. But even better is that they will probably forget about it. Kids tend to forget about their easter and halloween candy after a few weeks. We eventually eat some ourselves and throw the rest away after a few months.

Buy it back - Buy your child’s candy back from them, then take a family trip to the toy store and let them pick out a few toys. This is a nice treat, since it’s another long two months until Christmas.

Weed out the real junk - Allow your child to keep chocolate candies, but eliminate the artificially colored stuff. This will keep most of the chemicals to a minimum.

One junk a day rule - In our house we have a “one junk a day rule” that we have taught our kids from an early age. This doesn’t mean they actually eat one every day, it simply means that when they DO eat a candy, they can only have one.

Green Options:
Use reusable candy-collecting bags. Simple, easy, and ensures that your large stash of candy won’t end up all over the street from a less-than-durable plastic bag. Avoid those plastic pumpkins, too. They’re made of petroleum, and you can only use them once a year.
Use trick-or-treating as an opportunity for stewardship. After trick or treating, bring a separate bag for your kids to pick up the inevitable candy wrappers left by less-savvy munchkins.

The Sierra Club:

• Set a spooky mood with soy or beeswax candles, not those made from petroleum-based paraffin. If you like scented candles, look for ones with fragrances derived from essential oils rather than synthetic chemicals.

• Avoid masks made out of vinyl. Latex ones are safer, unless you’re allergic to the material.
• Look up some recipes for pumpkin pie, soup, or curry so your decoration doesn’t go to waste after Halloween. (Not much of a chef? Compost that jack-o-lantern, at least

The Green Guide
Pesticides and fertilizers used in the production of sugar have led to the destruction of aquatic ecosystems. The loss of topsoil to cane fields has destroyed forest habitats. But sugar’s sins start with the slave trade, as Europeans brought captured Africans to work in the cane fields of the Caribbean throughout the 18th century, where slaves died in greater numbers than in the U.S. Sadly, this legacy hasn’t come to an end: The chocolate trade has encouraged forced labor in Africa as cocoa farmers sell their product at prices well below what they can afford…

This Halloween, little ghouls and goblins in the U.S. can do their part by spending the night “reverse trick-or-treating” in partnership with Global Exchange. As kids go door-to-door, they’ll switch roles and hand over fair-trade chocolate and literature to neighbors.

I like this idea of “reverse trick-or-treating” with fair-trade goodies. I may have to revise my ghoulish plans on Halloween night. Perhaps we will participate in “exchange” trick-or-treating with our neighbors, that way everyone gets yummy, organic candy.

It would appear that I am not alone in my passion for the heavenly food. Hundreds of people attended the Chocolate Show here in Paris this weekend. They went to watch the experts prepare chocolate delicacies, to hear lectures on the latest in chocolate-making machinery, or to see the latest chocolate-inspired fashion. But most of all they went to sample an astounding variety of the fine food. Although they did not steal the show, organic and Fair Trade chocolate featured prominently throughout the weekend.

I spoke to Emilie Guerin, a member of Ethiquable, a French Fair Trade company that has a partnership with a cooperative of cocoa producers in the Dominican Republic. Ethiquable, a combination of the words "éthique" and "équitable," French for ethical and fair, was founded in 2003. "Four years ago we started with 8 products," Emilie said. "Now we have 120." They began with coffee and now work with a range of products from orange juice to rice, and, of course, chocolate. But their goals remain the same from one foodstuff to the next: Ethiquable is dedicated to ensuring Fair Trade with farmers in the developing world and respect for the environment.

Divine, a delicious Fair Trade chocolate company, has a tasty deal for all the top chefs out there. They're looking for recipes that have "heaps of creativity, Divine appeal, and powerful statements about why contestants are hungry to change the world through Fair Trade." The sweetest entry wins a trip to Washington D.C. and some chocolate. The entries are due December 15th, and with the holidays coming, there's a perfect opportunity to test out your creation on family and friends while introducing them to Fair Trade. If you need a snack to get your creative juices flowing, try out some of Divine's or Equal Exchange's recipes.

Years back (at least seven or eight by my count), Levi's used to offer a custom jeans program wherein you would visit one of their stores, get measured by a trained associate, try on some sample pairs, and order jeans that are fit just right for you. Unfortunately, I only got one pair made before they closed the program, which to this day is still quite a disappointment for me.

Imagine my delight when I stated hearing about Ontario-based UJeans, which offers a tellingly custom, 11-point fit that you measure yourself. On top of that, all their goods are made from sustainable cotton (not organic, but close) from a unique farming program in Pakistan. The cotton is dyed with natural minerals and enzymes, lowering the company's (and your wardrobe's) impact on the environment. All manufacturing steps are done under Fair Trade conditions, and a portion of all the company's profits are distributed through Kiva, offering micro-loans to small businesses in developing countries. Want more eco-involvement? Each pair of jeans is mailed in a denim envelop, made from remnant fabric from the manufacturing process. "The denim bag has been used for a make-up bag, pencil case and even a sleeping bag for stuffed animals," said Daniel Feuer, President of UJeans. An outline of the businesses' complete sustainable actions can be seen on their website.

This campaign makes it even easier for your town to become a Fair Trade town, following in the footsteps of Media, PA and Brattleboro, VT. This campaign has developed guidelines on how to achieve the five goals required to become one:

1. The formation of a steering committee that meets regularly.
2. Availability in local stores, cafes, and other venues of a range of Fair Trade products that are either certified by TransFair USA or sold by retailers that are members of Fair Trade Federation.
3. The use of Fair Trade products by a number of local organizations, such as places of worship, schools, hospitals and offices.
4. Attraction of media attention and visible public support of the local campaign.
5. Passage of a resolution supporting Fair Trade by the town or city council/governing body and a commitment to serve Fair Trade products at meetings.

A Fair Trade Toolkit(pdf) is available that covers in depth, each of these five goals.

Forming a steering committee is the first step towards your towns new designation. Check out Co-op America's list or search your community groups and find out if a Fair Trade coalition already exists in your area. If not, start one up! The toolkit offers advice on how to structure your group and ideas for hosting various events in your community.