The Fair Trading Co.

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Ground control Published: 11 July 2008 11:00 Author: Katie Kilgallen

It's easy to talk a good game on conditions in the supply chain, but how can you ensure it works in practice? Katie Kilgallen finds out how Marks & Spencer ensures fair trade really is fair.

Read the whole story :
http://www.retail-week.com/CSR/2008/07/ground_control.html

Quaker cobbler puts soul into sole …Clark family entrepreneur is helping South African orphans affected by Aids

By Sarah Butler The Guardian, Saturday June 7, 2008

Lancelot Clark, the brains behind the Wallabee shoe, is striding out into a new trend - ethical fashion.

The septuagenarian entrepreneur has set up a business called Soul of Africa, which raises money for orphans in South Africa who have lost their parents to Aids by training and employing local women to stitch shoes.

The project, which was started with an investment of less than #30,000, employs 70 women and generated $1.5m worth of orders this year, double those of last year. It wants to expand into clothing in the UK, with plans to partner a major retailer. The brand has held talks with retailers, including Next, about working on a limited number of pieces that could be launched this year. In the US, Clark has linked up with Tianello, a casual clothing firm, which sells a Soul of Africa range that raises funds for the charity.

For more information: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/07/retail.aids

Oxfam goes upmarket
Hadley Freeman, deputy fashion editor
Thursday May 8, 2008
The Guardian

Another day, another fashion launch in London. Yesterday afternoon, a few doors down from a deli where you can buy #5 loaves of bread and a shop with a #1,500 dress in the window, a self-described "boutique" held its launch party after several weeks of the requisite publicity in the style press. Could it be Prada? Or possibly Armani? Not exactly: it was Oxfam. The charity was taking its first steps towards a more fashion-conscious image: away from the slightly battered shoes and oversize floral skirts it's known for and into the world of designer one-offs and couture accessories.
Article continues

The new Oxfam Boutique on Westbourne Grove, London.
Photograph: David Levene

From The Times, by Sarah Butler
December 27, 2007

Fashion meets ethics as major retailers flaunt their Fairtrade cotton labels

The system of giving the world’s poorest farmers a better deal is becoming an accepted and welcome part of UK shopping

A small village in Mali is not usually where you expect to run into a buyer from Topshop, Marks & Spencer or Debenhams, but the landlocked African country is increasingly playing host to some of Britain’s top retailers as they battle it out to prove their ethical credentials. Demand for Fairtrade and organic cotton, much of which is grown by small producers in poor countries such as Mali, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, is expected to balloon next year as stores draw on one of the most well known ethical brands.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/africa/article3097481.ece

Brown pledges to banish the plastic bag from Britain
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Tuesday, 20 November 2007

Gordon Brown announced he was backing the campaign to eliminate wasteful plastic bags in a wide-ranging speech setting ambitious climate-change targets for Britain.The Prime Minister said he was calling a forum of supermarkets, the British Retail Consortium and other groups urgently to assess how they could end the use of disposable bags.Speaking two weeks before the Bali conference on climate change, which he said would start two years of hard bargaining over cuts in carbon, Mr Brown warned that rich countries, including the US and Britain, may have to increase their targets for cuts in emissions to 80 per cent.

For more info go to: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3176998.ece

We are always keeping an eye on what’s going on in the world of social justice and the environment …

New figures will reveal the amount spent on 'ethical' products is soaring.
By Lucy Siegle
Sunday February 25, 2007
The Observer

The British consumer is no stranger to the ultra-competitiveness of the nation's big retailers. Over the past decade we've seen them go to war over selling baked beans for less than it costs to produce them, telling farmers to provide food at cost price and battling for supremacy over the high street. This week comes a further, unexpected twist. The latest trading battleground is over who has the shiniest ethical halo. On the eve of Britain's 14th Fairtrade Fortnight, which starts tomorrow, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's are launching products that - to borrow a sharing, caring cliche - 'give something back'.

Oxfam plans ethical fashion chain
Wednesday, 27 June 2007

Oxfam is intending to convert some of its charity clothing stores into a fashion conscious chain, under the watchful eye of Jane Shepherdson, former director of Topshop and current advisor to ethical retailer People Tree. It has been suggested that Oxfam will be offering clothing crafted from organic cotton and other sustainable raw materials, in a bid to revamp its image. Jane Shepherdson is believed to be working voluntarily with Oxfam to produce the collection.

Jane Shepherdson resigned from her role as brand director at Topshop, in October 2006, after condemning the sustainability of high street fashion and she is now an advisor to Japanese based ethical brand, People Tree, having introduced the label into Topshop in 2006.

Fair Trade Fashion Takes Off in Europe- Women's Wear Daily
May 03, 2006
By Ellen Groves

British giant Marks & Spencer began selling its own fair trade-certified cotton line in March, which guarantees higher prices for cotton producers. High Street chain Topshop's initial one-month trial of ethical brand People Tree was so successful at its Oxford Street flagship that it is doubling the size of the concession and extending it through the summer.

Give as you sip with four fair trade wines
Sunday June 18, 2006
By Tim Atkin
The Observer

By the time you read this, Maria Gallup will have made a speech in front of 1,000 people. The prospect would be worrying for most of us, but this address is particularly daunting. The Co-op's wine buyer is making a trip to South Africa to celebrate the first anniversary of Du Toitskloof, the largest Fairtrade project in the world, and she's anxious to say the right thing.

She'd be embarrassed by the description, but Gallup is the unofficial queen of Fairtrade vino. The Co-op has a dozen Fairtrade wines on its shelves, 10 under its own label, and it hopes to sell 200,000 cases (#10m worth) this year. The retailer has been selling Fairtrade wines since 2001 and is by far the most committed of the UK supermarkets. Of all the different projects, Du Toitskloof is the closest to Gallup's ideal. 'It's a shining example of how a Fairtrade project should work in uniting a large, impoverished community of 786 people and assisting them to achieve their own development,' she says. 'So much has been achieved in one year. It is well run and completely transparent, and the wines are good too.'

In May 2007 BRAC-Aarong joined as a member of IFAT committing to their 10 principles of fairtrade. The FTO Mark is a quality mark means standards are being implemented regarding working conditions, wages, child labour and the environment. These standards are verified by self-assessment, mutual reviews and external verification. It demonstrates that an organization's trading activity is committed to continuing improvement. It applies mainly to non-food consumer products and handicraft items, see

The Fairtrade Label is a “seal of approval” that appears on products that meet internationally agreed Fairtrade standards and which guarantees to consumers that their purchases will benefit the producers, their families and the surrounding communities from the developing countries that they originate from. It applies mainly to commodities like tea, coffee, sugar, cocoa and cotton to name but a few.

'Wake up to fair trade' say celebrities
The UK's third Fairtrade Fortnight gets underway with the backing of celebrities and policitians alike who want to urge the public to eat with a clear conscience

Louise Tickle, Monday March 5, 2001
SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Angus Deayton, Janet Suzman, George Alagiah and Antony Worrall Thompson are just some of the celebrities who will be teaming up with the Fairtrade Foundation to launch the UK's third annual Fairtrade Fortnight - "Wake up to fair trade". Over the next two weeks, the charity will urge us to start the day by eating a more thoughtful breakfast, in a nationwide campaign to promote a better deal for small-scale farmers in developing countries.

Big retailers help raise Fairtrade sales by third
7 Britain is still the leading market for certified goods
7 M&S becomes one of the biggest converts this year

David Teather, Wednesday June 28, 2006
The Guardian

Global sales of Fairtrade-certified goods grew by more than a third last year to #758m as increasing numbers of big name retailers got behind the scheme, according to figures published today. Sales of Fairtrade coffee, perhaps the most established product, continued to grow strongly during 2005 and other more recently certified goods including flowers and textiles made substantial gains. Britain is the biggest market for Fairtrade goods in volume terms. According to figures from the Fairtrade Foundation, sales in Britain reached #195m in 2005, a 40% rise on the year before. The Fairtrade Foundation is the UK member of the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO), which administers the worldwide scheme. "Retailers are switching over to Fairtrade goods because of consumer demand," said Barbara Crowther, a spokeswoman for the foundation.

“The rapid growth in sales of ‘fairly traded food and the range of food products will continue’ …Non-food products will be flowing through into the mainstream on a bigger scale ‘although this will require new approaches to fair trade production to cope with the quantities, consistency of quality and sufficient competitive prices required to break through’”

Traidcraft’s, Paul Chandler Chief Executive
50 Reasons to buy fair-trade, by Miles Litvinoff and John Madeley (published 2007)

UK Organic Market
Source: http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/psweb.nsf/B3/market_information.html

“Global Exchange markets several embroidered crafts such as the Nakshi Kantha stocking and bags from [BRAC] Aarong”
Global Exchange, Fairtrade On-line Store

“Bangladeshi partners would like to call on other IFAT members to join the international movement of Fair Trade Fashion.…Fair Trade clothing has provided thousands of jobs for handweavers, hand embroiderers, block printers and tailors, paying a fair price and helping to provide regular orders, with revenues going back into community development and environmental protection”.

Fair Trade Fashion Declaration, 2006
Signatories People Tree, BRAC-Aarong, Artisan Hut, Folk Bangladesh, GUP, Kumudini Welfare Trust, Thanapara Swallows Development Society

FTAANZ Newsletter Spring 2007