Patricia Lanton proposes that Fairtrade wines have, at last, come of age over on the Guardian Word of Mouth Blog. She reviews a number of Fairtrade wines, including strong offerings from The Co-operative, M&S and Waitrose:

Recently I tasted around 50 wines which are currently available and found that the quality has improved enormously and the choice is becoming much more varied.

Sounds like the makings of a good headache! Read more here

UPDATE: The Independent have now released their Ten Best Fairtrade Wines, which you can read on The Independent Online.

(Photo: Mr T in DC)

Green and Blacks and Ben and Jerry’s have re-affirmed their commitment to ethical manufacturing, both announcing that their ranges will soon become 100% Fairtrade.

Green and Black’s have always had a commitment to Fairtrade. Their Maya Gold bar was the first official Fairtrade product to be sold in the UK, but this announcement demonstrates their continued commitment to good values.

After Ben and Jerry’s was sold to Unilever 10 years ago, the brand has been closely observed by those of us wondering “will corporate ownership change their activist priorities?”

These announcements come as refreshing news at a time when many manufacturers opt for a single Fairtrade product line to appease their “ethical consumer” target group, while leaving the rest of their range unchanged.

(Source: The Guardian, BBC News, Photos: Beattrapkit and Meaghan O’Malley)

This is the first in a series of micro enterprise profiles on makethingsfair.com. We want to make people aware not only of the progress of the consumer giants, but also of the people who are engaging with specific communities and harnessing their energies in creative and transforming ways.

It might seem hard to believe, but there is some good news coming out of Iraq. Buy Shoes. Save Lives. have joined forces with families in the North to make their traditional, hand crafted shoes available to a wider audience. Founder, Jeremy Courtney was interviewed in Relevant Magazine:

The full name is klashi kurdi. They’re made locally [in Northern Iraq] by Kurds. By one shoemaker’s account, they’ve been around since 600 B.C. Whether you believe that or not, they’re definitely legendary in this part of the world. It takes at least 35 hours to make one pair…we can introduce you by name to the people who make our shoes. I love the idea of seeing families apprenticed in this trade. It’s beautiful.

The company is ‘fair trade’ in its simplest form: workers get a fair and much needed income, while extra profits are invested in funding heart surgery for Iraqi children:

Klash and Kids Klash are not made in anonymous factories or sweat shops. We do not have relationships with grizzly foremen to the exclusion of the actual labor force. We meet with the shoemakers themselves, know their names, know their families, eat lunch with them and treat them with as much respect as we desire for ourselves.

To order your pair, click here.

(source: The Preemptive Love Coalition, Relevant Magazine)

Six weeks after Stop the Traffik organized their March on Mars, the chocolate giant has committed to make incremental changes towards producing chocolate without slave labour. According to a recent update, Mars’ global range will be free from human trafficking by 2020:

As a first step, one of Mars’ leading brands, Galaxy bars, in the UK and Ireland, will be certified ‘from early 2010, through the Rainforest Alliance as, ‘free from trafficked and exploited labour’.

2020 seems a long way off, but this is still great news. Lets hope that more of these chocolate giants (Nestle, Kraft Foods) will join in this tide of change…

A select committee report released today insists that the UK Government, Judges and Police begin to take Trafficking in Persons more seriously:

“[law] enforcement is patchy, prosecution rates are low and there is little protection for victims. What we have is in effect a resurgence of a type of slave trade, yet we have no good information on the scale of the problem”

(via The Guardian, photo: Maurice)

An example of how luxury tourism and “fair trade” initiatives can work hand in hand:

Amy and Neal Carter-James built their luxury eco-resort, Guludo Beach Lodge, here on a white sand beach on the edge of the Quirimbas National Park, not far from the impoverished village of Guludo. Says Amy, “We wanted to find a place where fair-trade tourism could alleviate poverty and provide jobs.”

(via Conde Nast)

How important is it to be consistently ethical? What if a company is fair trade, but has other weak spots in their business dealings?

Once such example is American Apparel. They are well know for fashionable, “sweatshop-free” clothing, and pride themselves on having a strong relationship with their workers:

For us “sweatshop free” was never about criticizing other business models; it was about attempting something new. It comes down to this: not blindly outsourcing, but rather knowing the faces of our workers and providing them the opportunity to make a fair wage.

But there are two areas that wouldn’t fit within your average ethical business model:

1. The reputation of their CEO

While highly successful at growing and managing the company Dov Charney is known as something of a womanizing sex addict, who has faced a number of sexual harassment lawsuits. He apparently thinks nothing of propositioning his workers:

“I’ve got myself in trouble telling people what I like to do for 20 minutes off-site,” Charney says.

It could be argued that such a workplace isn’t as “fair” or ethical as “sweatshop-free” would suggest.

2. Soft Porn advertising

The company has come under criticism for using advertising which is shamelessly sexually provocative. Images are thought to mimic amateur soft-porn. In response Charney is defiant:

“It’s noise, it’s chatter, it’s bullshit, it’s perceptions, it’s stereotypes, it’s manipulation, it’s garbage…I never started making any proper money until I decided to make clothing that was geared towards young adults only …To meet their sensibility, sexy was job one. Fashion is all about sex and function.”

What do you think? Is it okay for a company to just be “sweatshop-free?”

Update: Influential web designer Cameron Moll has recently taken the decision to stop using American Apparel due to their advertising practices. Learn more about his reasoning here (06/12/2009)

(sources: The Guardian, American Apparel. photo: American Apparel)

Saturday is World Fair Trade Day 2009, and to celebrate we have some facts about the history of Fair Trade:

1. Fair Trade certification first began in 1988.
2. It was first called Max Havelaar, after a character in a nineteenth-century Dutch novel
3. The first fair trade product was Mexican coffee that was sold in Denmark.
4. There are currently 1.5 million Fairtrade producers and workers in 58 countries.
5. One-quarter of the bananas now sold in the UK are Fairtrade certified.
6. The growth of Fair Trade doesn’t seem to have been hindered by the Global Financial Crisis.
7. Cadbury will be investing £45M into assisting cocoa farming in Ghana, India, Indonesia and The Caribbean over the next 10 years.
8. In 2008 (compared to 2007), Fair Trade sales rose by 24% in Austria, 40% in Denmark, 57% in Finland, 22% in France, 75% in Sweden, 43% in the UK, and by 10% in the US.

(Source: the above was adapted from an article by Matt Strand at Sustainable Life Media. Photo: Jake Liefer)

According to Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, the company are about to start “telling their story.” The cynics among you will argue that this is just another case of back-pedaling, when the corporate giant decides to announce “actually we’ve been into ethics all along.” However it’s hard to ignore the good press they get from certain large NGOs.

The difference that Starbucks’ investment has made in Ethiopia is not to be laughed at, and despite their sickly, almost robotic obsession with “the latest campaign,” their heart seems much larger than their corporate personality.

Take a look at their latest video here:

(source: Idea Sandbox, Starbucks, Developments and Oxfam, photo: Lali Masriera)