Is there more than one kind of "Fair Trade"?

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!

Could trying on at home be the key to e-commerce?

Last week, the ladies of Eva & Paul conducted an experiment, thanks to the help of our friends at M.M. LAFLEUR. We ordered four beautiful dresses in a range of sizes to try on in the comfort of our own home.  Why did we three girls on a budget feel comfortable giving these dresses a try?  Because the deal with M.M. Lafluer is that you get to try on the dresses without paying - they send you the dresses, hold your credit card, and only charge you for what you don't return.  And the dresses came in the cutest packaging, that made it super easy to pack back up and return what we didn't want.  We were so sad to see some of the dresses go - it's no wonder that Sarah Lafluer, the company's founder, find that many customers keep all four dresses! This model

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Other companies have seen the success of at-home try-ons as well.  Warby Parker, an online (and now somewhat off-line) glasses company will send five pairs of glasses to a customer's home.  These glasses don't have lenses - in fact, according to a source in the company, they're sent from an entirely different fulfillment center than the glasses with lenses.  Once a customer finds the perfect pair, they can order them online and enter in their prescription.

 Trunk Club is another company focusing on at-home try-ons.  Like M.M. LAFLEUR, you get to keep whatever merchandise you like and only pay for what you don't send back. Trunk Club is just for the guys, operating under the idea that a lot of guys could use style help.  Personal stylists work with customers to select the clothes that go into the "trunk". But don't worry ladies, companies like Stitch Fix are emerging to provide at-home shopping and style advice for women!

Here at E&P, we had a great time trying the M.M. LAFLEUR dresses on in the comfort of our office. We're busy women and don't necessarily have tons of time to go shopping.  We're interested to see if at-home try-ons will work for Eva & Paul jeans too, especially since we know that once women try on our jeans, they don't want to give them up!  Stay tuned! 

Women @HBS, Women in Business

Thoughts on the New York Times article on women-focused changes at Harvard Business School from E&P Founder Julia Kastner, HBS 2012. 

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All weekend, my cellphone has been buzzing and my inbox has been flooding.  "I just read this NYT article!" my friends write, "what do you think? Is it all true?"

My response, in general, has been that a lot of the article is right, especially in terms of HBS's culture.  There's a strong cultural focus on wealth and financial prowess, which is often possessed by men, not women.  As a female social entrepreneur on campus, I was a bit of an outsider - I didn't come from finance (I still look up terms on Investopedia on a frequent basis) so I was often afraid to raise my hand in class, and I wasn't expecting a big salary upon graduation, so I didn't feel as comfortable galavanting across the world with my classmates.  I heard a rumor that some of my section-mates rented a private island during spring break.  I wasn't invited, of course, and even if they'd invited me, I wouldn't have been able to go.

However, when my parents asked "would you have liked to have taken part in the new initiatives?" I responded with an emphatic "NO!!" I must confess I'm grateful to have missed all these new programs.  If I'd had to participate in Field III, the extra group classwork assigned on top of the basic course load, I might not have had time to do the traveling I did that helped me get Eva & Paul off the ground.  I also don't think that a 90-person class section is the right venue for a discussion of sensitive issues of any kind, let alone women in the workplace.

Moreover, sitting at Eva & Paul's office in Soho a year out of HBS, I think the school's culture is just a reflection of the world of business.  Unfortunately, it's still not really easy to be a woman in the workforce - there are just so many more men in business than women.  It goes back generations and generations - there just haven't been as many female MBA's historically as men.  And men, as honorable as they may be, see things differently - it might be hard for them to understand a company that targets women. My classmates from BaubleBar realized they had to target their VC's female to staff in order to get through the door and explain the value of their products. I'm fortunate to have a lot of support from various men in business, but sometimes conversations are just a little trickier when explaining why E&P's jeans make a woman's butt look so good - many men are surprised to learn how many women struggle with jeans shopping, whereas women almost always understand why jeans should fit better.

Challenging processes like fundraising and job hunting are just a smidge harder as a woman. I'm actually grateful that HBS was a tough environment, because it prepared me for some of the tough meetings I've had since graduation.  On the other hand, I hope in the long term business can become a friendlier, more equal place as more of us women make our ways to the top.  And I hope business and business schools move away from considering the highest-paying finance jobs as the most valuable spots, instead of also valuing consumer goods, consulting, tech, and entrepreneurship as worthwhile career paths.  I think part of this is due to the way the schools are ranked - the career office is under pressure to keep the average graduate's salary high to justify the high cost of the school, but doesn't focus on long-term careers and happiness.

I don't think it's HBS's responsibility to fix the entire world of business.  HBS students are adults, not children - they should be responsible for their own actions and be allowed to drink and travel as they please and shouldn't be so swamped with work they don't have time for the other activities that make b-school worthwhile.  But I think more awareness around the extra challenges women face is always beneficial, and I applaud the HBS administration for their dedication to this issue.