As climate change and the carbon footprint of our actions continue to be increasingly important in politics, the media and our own consciences, many people have begun to explore if, and how, Fairtrade can be compatible with saving the environment.
Trade, both free and fair, is known for its adverse effects on the climate. What allows products to be shipped and flown all around the world to give consumers choice has led to the UK needing more than three planet Earths to sustain the current level of consumption.
Our capitalistic greed has resulted in incredible inequalities between rich and poor, and we owe it to countries such as Malawi, which needs a tiny fraction of one Earth, to do our part and facilitate positive change.
Of course, it would be a fallacy to suggest that Fairtrade is the solution to climate change and world poverty. In fact, though Fairtrade strives to give a better life through a fairer wage and better working conditions to poor producers, it also adds to climate change.
However, all consumption, and the problems associated with it, will continue to escalate unless we change everything about our society and buy less. It really is that simple; if only it were that easy. Therefore, to find Fairtrade lacking is to find trade woefully inadequate and detrimental to our planet.
Unlike normal, exploitative trade though, Fairtrade does not admit defeat and accept the status quo; instead it strives not only to give farmers a better wage, but also to minimise its environmental impact. Not doing so is counter-productive in improving producers’ lives because environmental disasters strike hardest in those parts of the world where rain is more than just an inconvenience and droughts mean more then a hose pipe ban.
As trade is going to continue, it should be Fairtrade. ‘Choice editing’, whereby unethical options are removed from the company all together, has already begun – for example, the switch by Sainbury’s to Fairtrade bananas. And with other supermarkets following suit, it may not be long before there is a complete market removal of ‘exploitative’ bananas.
However, Fairtrade can only ever be truly fair when multinationals are forced to absorb the ethical premium that is currently passed on to the consumer so that buying Fairtrade becomes a realistic and accessible choice for everyone. This will mean that many more consumers as well as producers will have the opportunity to participate in a fairer system.
Apart from its wider goal of making trade fair, Fairtrade is also called on to be environmentally sound, sustainable and organic. In fact, traders are obliged to pay a price to producers that covers the costs of sustainable production and living; and to sign contracts that allow for sustainable production practices. Many Fairtrade goods are organic, this number is growing all the time and all Fairtrade products are free from genetically modified organisms.
In fact, Fairtrade producers often clear up the mess left by non Fairtrade farmers. For instance, bananas are often wrapped in plastic bags for protection – these are left scattered around the countryside. Fairtrade standards prohibit this and encourage Fairtrade farmers to clear away the bags that often contain chemicals that harm the environment.
Fairtrade farmers are unlikely to overproduce, as opposed to many non-Fairtrade farmers, and instead are able to diversify into other crops or improve the quality and sustainability of their existing crops. Fairtrade thus inspires ‘producer power’ giving farmers back their autonomy.
By decreasing oversupply, waste and energy expenditure decreases, therefore their carbon footprint is reduced. By encouraging people to buy Fairtrade, this may have the effect of causing people to think more about the quality of the goods they buy rather then the quantity so that less becomes more.
For this to happen, however, Fairtrade products need to expand from their current luxury goods market – largely wine and roses – and increase their production of more necessary items such as cotton and rice.
It is important to be realistic about Fairtrade, however. Fairtrade is one piece of the jigsaw, of which there are several parts for a more ethical world. The more people that support Fairtrade, the more rigorous it will be able to afford to be.
Thanks to its growth and success, the Fairtrade movement has been transformed from its humble beginnings.
Now that multinationals are getting in on the action, it is imperative that Fairtrade does not lose its focus and holds on to its vision of giving producers control over co-operatives, instead of allowing private companies to take over.
Fairtrade is part of a bigger picture of how we need to change our consumption habits. The power of consumption is not enough on its own, but it is a start.
As well as buying Fairtrade products that cannot be grown in this country, we need to start supporting local sustainability by buying local produce from farmers’ markets, greengrocers and small shops, borrowing clothes or buying from charity shops, exchanging items with friends and using creativity to turn one thing into another.
There are three main advantages to this. Not only will it go some way to reduce the number of planets the UK needs but it will decrease the monopoly soulless multinationals have over independent shops and will make our student loans last a bit longer.
So much of our lives are affected by trade that it is impossible to always ‘think global, act local’. Fairtrade gives us a way to support workers in our global village that until thirteen years ago was not possible, and I commend Fairtrade for that.
1. Rob Prior
Hate to dip my little fly of critical thinking in your ointment but i disagree.
First of all allow me to point out a factual innaccuracy – you state that ‘the UK needs three planet earths’, in reality it was ESTIMATED that the WHOLE WORLD would need 3 planet earths to sustain current levels of consumption. And that is just a paper calculation not fact.
Now fairtrade might do wonders for reducing the guilt of westerners, but it actually does jack shit for the world’s poor. Let me explain.
Historically, not one person in the world has been lifted out of poverty by fair trade or other similar neo-socialist schemes. Free trade is the only way any country has ever done so – look at china and india for striking recent examples of this – more people lifted out of absolute poverty last year than ever before. How? Simple, demolishing barriers to free trade, liberalising markets and getting rid of subsidies. They were lifted out of poverty because they could sell their products in the developed world’s market.
Fairtrade is just another unfair trade barrier. It manages the production and sale process from start to finish. Most annoyingly it dictates to producers in the third world how to spend the extra money from the higher prices.
For example. Instead of investing the money into new technology, pesticides or anything else that might make the production process more efficient and therefore environmentally friendly, or stuff that genuinely raises the quality of life in those countries like proper running water or elctricity supply, the money is spent FOR them by fairtrade organisations on stuff like mudhut schools or outdoor latrines or those godawful ONE water ‘playpumps’, stuff which have lots of great pictures of smiley black kids to show the folks back home but punches way below the bar of what the people could have and what they deserve.
Basically, fairtrade is more a way of us in the developed world feeling good about ourselves, rather than genuinely wanting what’s best for the poor. The Fairtrade Foundation allows entire towns to call themselves “fairtrade towns”, but this badge of honour is a cheap way of connecting the sympathy of ordinary people with the plight of the poor.
Places like Africa and South Asia do not want to be the world’s charity case. More than anything they need investment in infrastructure and development. The reason africa gets screwed over by floods, droughts and famines is because they are not sufficiently developed to deal with those disasters. If they could invest in proper flood defences for example, not only would they be able to better resist present day floods, they would also be in a better position to deal with the possible consequences of global warming. It’s odd how environmentalists wax lyrical about about the third world being worst hit by global warming, yet it is environmentalism that is the main barrier to the third world being in a position to adapt to it because ‘Gaia might not be happy if you build concrete flood defences’
And another thing. Your article is hardly objective in its description of the market system – ‘capitalistic greed’, ‘souless multinationals’. You automatically assume that all corporations are evil, and worse, assume that all of us agree with you. By all means make a critique of capitalism if you want to but do it in a rational, well researched way rather than this which sound like the utopian rantings of a ‘socialist students’ rally.
Your article exposes one of the many ulterior motives of the environmental movement – lecturing the rest of us as to how we live our lives. Old puritannical virtues such as abstinence, deffered gratification and a spartan lifestyle together with discredeited Malthusian fear-mongering about the end of the world are reborn in your article and the environmental religion as a whole.
Can we really presume that Third World farmers aspire to nothing more than sustaining our ethical lifestyles, especially when that means they are effectively forced to adopt those ‘ethical’ values themselves?
2. Rob Prior
And another thing. Quite how championing small business against big business is more effiecient or progressive is beyond me. Your garbled alternative about swapping clothes and buying from markets and charity shops is the most reactionary blueprint for a new society this side of an al qaeda website, what can only be described as a peasant’s economy.
If all supermarkets shut how could the small shops absorb all the million plus jobs lost in the process? Ironically enough, one area in which small traders have been successful recently – specialist food – has largely been thanks to the arrival of supermarkets. I fail to comprehend how shopping at a farmers market every week can leave students with more money than shopping at a supermarket. Grocery bills are at all time low levels now thanks to price busting stores like tesco and asda. Many Britons, myself included now tend to divide their shopping between supermarkets for basics and local shops for specific ingredients (Wally’s delicatessen is amazing). The fact that small stores and specialist shops continue to thrive suggests that they can benefit from the arrival of supermarkets.
It’s fine to be anti-corporation, ant-globalisation or pro socialist, those are all fine debatable ideas. But please don’t try to pass it off as compassion. I’m sorry to keep posting but i’m annoyed that erroneous ideas and opinions like these which do more harm than good are allowed to pass without anyone thinkning critically about them. Without a proper debate or knowledge about the issues at hand we could waste our noblest efforts on populist bullshit like this.