Make Fairtrade Fair

The UK Fairtrade Foundation has done great work over the last 10 years in bringing to our attention the appalling living and working conditions western buying power can impose on growers and producers in developing nations, and seeking to remedy this through the building of a strong, identifable brand of fairly traded products.

However, it is clear to us, the undersigned, that the admission of Nestle, the most boycotted company on the planet, into the 'Fairtrade' fold by the Foundation, is undermining all the good work that has been done, and risks the credibility of this well established brand.

We, the ethical consumers of the UK, request that the Fairtrade Foundation urgently review the narrow criteria and biased license fee weighting so that consumers may once again trust that the Fairtrade logo really does mean fair.

Specifically, we request that the following be urgently considered:

1. That the setting of the 'Fairtrade' produce price never be permitted to be lower than the market price for any commodity.

2. That the license fee scale be weighted by proportion of total (relevant) brands meeting fairtrade criteria, rather than single product unit sales exclusively. This would demonstrate the deserved support to small scale 100% fairtrade companies, and would reduce the economic viability of using the Fairtrade logo as an ethical-wash tool for large corporations.

3. That the fairtrade criteria require a broad-based ethical & environmental corporate scoring, so that award of the Fairtrade logo may truly represent an ethical consumer choice, rather than minor tokenism on the part of inherently unethical corporations.

We, the undersigned, wholeheartedly support the global Fairtrade movement, and request these issues be addressed urgently to protect the integrity of a movement we are all proud to support.

We appreciate that this may mean slower financial growth for the Foundation than recent years have seen. However, we believe that it is precisely the placing of financial growth over ethics that created the very need for the Fairtrade movement. We would not see an issue so close to our hearts to be swallowed by the same ethical blindness the movement seeks to redress.