Is Fair Trade Environmentally Friendly?

How can you combine a support for Fair Trade with environmental sustainability, or is it impossible to reconcile the two?

Today is 10 May and is World Fair Trade Day . The theme is Fair Trade & Ecology and although Fair Trade is primarily a campaign for trade & social justice, it also has a long history of having a powerful & positive impact on the environment.

Here are three examples of what is being achieved:
- There are two internationally recognised standards for Fair Trade: FLO which predominantly covers commodity items such as tea, bananas, cotton etc and IFAT which covers everything else. Both organisations include environmental sustainability as a vital element in their criteria for bestowing Fair Trade accreditation.

- Moreover, organic & Fair Trade production often go hand in hand: for example the cotton production by Agrocel in India which was the first cotton producer to achieve Fairtrade status and now supplies Marks & Spencer in the UK with a large amount of high quality Fairtrade certified, organic cotton. Even with smaller producers that are not yet or able to achieve organic status, many have been newly trained in important agricultural techniques such as crop rotation and natural alternatives to harmful pesticides. Also the success of rural co-operatives & other fair trade organisations also frequently helps attract workers to stay in the countryside & not join the rush to urbanisation.

- Fair trade producers are frequently creative and resourceful with the limited tools available to them, so this has lead to a huge growth in products that are made out of recyled materials - from glass to elephant dung.

Here are five great examples:

1. Stunning recycled glass tumbers & other glassware from Bolivia.

2. Newspaper bags that are made by an NGO whose main objective is to provide education and shelter to street children. This eco-friendly product is made from recycled Indian newspaper. The newspapers are collected by one man on his bicycle rickshaw calling at residential homes for any read newspapers. So sometimes your bag will have a completed crossword!

3. The Silver Sequin Photo Album
is skilfully hand embroidered onto recycled silk, using ornate silver thread and delicate silver sequins. The embroidery is hand sewn by skilled artisans from within the local community. This creates a unique feel to every product. The cotton fabric pages of the album are made using recylced cotton fabric which is then coloured using natural dyes.

4. Recylced Tin Lamps that are made in West Bengal out of recycled oil tins. The lanterns run on lamp oil/ paraffin and are functional.

5. Elephant Dung Photo Album that takes recycling to a new limit. A beautiful photo album that contains paper made from 80% elephant dung and 20% recycled paper. Elephant brass design on the front.