This fair trade stuff is pretty complicated. I think we're all starting to understand what “organic” means by this point - it conjures images of green fields and perfectly red, natural tomatoes. Technically, organic means grown without pesticides, but it also might mean that the product comes from a smaller farm with other kinds of socially responsible practices. So what’s really “fair trade”? We at Eva & Paul had a chat with a representative of the Fair Trade Federation and a representative of Fair Trade USA who explained that there are really a few types of fair trade:
Fair Trade Certified Commodities: TransFair (which includes Fair Trade USA) certifies the well-known Fair Trade products like coffee and chocolate, as well as cotton, gold, bananas, etc. They don’t have anything to do with the business practices of businesses that BUY these products, just of the businesses that get the products out of the ground. Let’s take, for example, a Fair Trade banana. This banana was harvested by a co-operative in Mexico. The farmers were paid well, the banana was harvested during reasonable hours of the day, etc. So the banana gets Fair Trade certified. Then Whole Foods buys the banana from the co-op, loads it on a truck, and brings it to Texas. Were the truckers paid well? Are Whole Foods employees paid well? Maybe, but maybe not. The banana is still Fair Trade. This makes lots of sense. But think about a chunk of cotton. Same thing - if it comes out of the ground Fair Trade, so be it. But what about the person who SEWS the cotton into clothing? No idea. Also, as our cotton producers in India explained, the cost paid to farmers for "Fair Trade" cotton is based on the highest quality cotton, while the cotton used for denim is the lowest quality. Our partners explained that Fair Trade cotton for them was 3x the price of regular cotton, vs. 2x for organic cotton. So for now, Eva & Paul uses organic cotton that supports family farms, but our denim is not actually Fair Trade, even though we follow similar socially responsible principles.
Fair Trade Manufacturing: To think through some of these questions, Fair Trade USA has started to also certify factories in emerging markets "Fair Trade" when they employ responsible practices for their employees. One of these practices is to allow for funds to go into a collective where employees can either distribute the funds as a bonus or use the funds for education programs for their children, health initiatives, etc. This leads to not only better wages and working conditions, but also empowerment for the factory workers. The only trouble is that for a factory to be certified "Fair Trade" it has to be "Trade" which means "Made in the USA" doesn't count. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending how you look at it, Eva & Paul is still too small to move our manufacturing out of NYC. So for now, our manufacturing is not Fair Trade, even though we employ similar principles in terms of wages and worker treatment. We also think about environmental responsibility, which is not accounted for per se in Fair Trade certification.
Fair Trade Certified Businesses: But what about all these "Fair Trade" earrings I see at 10,000 Villages? To deal with some of the questions around goods that are NOT commodities, the Fair Trade Federation started certifying BUSINESSES as "Fair Trade". These businesses have a social mission to treat employees well and they sell all kinds of products. So lets think about cotton again for a second. Instead of certifying the raw cotton, the Fair Trade Federation is interested in what happens to the cotton after it has been harvested. Who processes the cotton? Who sews it? How does the cotton make it to the U.S.? Fair treatment and wages for employees through the WHOLE supply chain is needed. Eva & Paul works with a Fair Trade company in India to source our hand-printed pocketing fabric. The beautiful designs are crafted by artisans who are given fair wages and good treatment. Clearly this doesn't make our jeans Fair Trade - they're not. But our jeans are made with environmental and social responsibility in mind - we think this should be the most important thing. And, above all, we will strive to get even more certifications for us and for all our partners as we grow!