It is possibly my favourite of all the festivities: going to choose a Christmas tree and then bringing it home in a car smelling of piney goodness, before erecting it in all its glory and adorning it with sparkly lights and decorations. For me, it signals the start of Christmas. And now we have our tree up, so Christmas has definitely begun.

There’s classical Christmas music playing on the stereo, a box of chocolates to hand and the most beautiful and authentic smell of Christmas there is – the incomparable smell of a Christmas tree.

And what has this go to do with making this a fair trade Christmas? The decorations of course! We have festooned our tree with a selection of fair trade decorations from the By Hand collection (currently available for free when you place an order totalling over £20 at www.by-hand.co.uk). The decorations are handcrafted by disadvantaged producers in Indonesia and so not only look great, but are also a symbol of supporting craftsmen and women across the world. There are no mass-produced, factory-made decorations on our tree. Oh no.

We have gone for a gold and silver theme, with a couple of blue birds of peace for good measure. Even the handpainted angel, who is watching over our tree, features gold hues and a touch of sparkle.

There are, of course, lots of fair trade Christmas decorations available. So make sure you pop into your local Shared Earth shop, or buy online from Traidcraft’s website at www.traidcraftshop.co.uk to make your tree a symbol of something else this year: fair trade – supporting people in need – and working together to make a difference.

Help spread the word: Tag your festive tweets with #letsmakethisafairtradechristmas

A small number of local, independent, fair trade organisations are holding an exclusive Christmas Market in Wetherby Town Hall on Tuesday 6th December. There will be mince pies and a festive cafe serving fair trade tea, coffee and cake, and a number of stalls selling fantastic fair trade gifts. It’s a great opportunity for the people of Wetherby to get in some Christmas shopping, and to buy some truly unique gifts that will not only bring joy to their loved ones, but will also have a real effect on the producers thousands of miles away.

At a time when money is tight and people are reining in their spending, fair trade needs more support than ever. Shareholders of multinational corporations can generally cope a lot better with a decrease in profits than third-world producers can cope with their products no longer being bought in the UK. If people stop buying fair trade, the producers lose their source of income. So, at a time when we all have a good reason to spend money, lets spend it on products that make a real difference.

On Tuesday 6th December, the people of Wetherby have a great chance to discover some of the beautiful fair trade gifts available, and to stock up on Christmas presents in the process! We look forward to seeing you there!

It is that time of year again: York Big Green Market is back! This week, from Thursday 3rd to Sunday 6th November, York’s Parliament Street will be the home of one of the largest ethical markets in the north of England. The Big Green Market takes over the centre of York this time each year, to offer the people of York a great range of unique fair trade and ethical products from local, independent businesses.

Notable fair trade organisations that will be there this year include:
* The By Hand Fair Trade Shop, which will be selling fair trade sterling silver jewellery, as well as some great fair trade Christmas decorations, eco-friendly bags and other ethical gifts
* Fairly Scrumptious, offering a delicious range of fair trade cupcakes, chocolate brownies and other delights for the sweet-toothed amongst us
* Kigali Crafts, a fabulous company trading fairly with Rwandan genocide survivors and selling a great range of jewellery and other items
* Shea Alchemy, selling luxurious beauty products made from fair trade shea butter

There are also a whole host of companies selling environmentally friendly, recycled and handcrafted products, making the Big Green Market THE place to start your Christmas shopping this year.

The Big Green Market is open from 9 to 6 Thursday to Saturday and from 10 to 5 on Sunday. For more information about the markets and the companies involved, click here to visit The Big Green Market Facebook Page.

This Fairtrade Fortnight we’re asking the nation to get loud and proud about the Fairtrade label. Show it off. Parade it. Tell everyone about the difference it makes to farmers all over the world.

So for two weeks on Facebook the country will be playing a game called Show Off Your Label.

There will be daily challenges where you’ll be positively encouraged to be a big, ginormous, limelight hogging show off on behalf of Fairtrade. The best showoffs will win some super prizes, like a trip to Sri Lanka, the home of Fairtrade tea. But most important of all, we’ll be spreading the message of Fairtrade.

To find out more visit www.facebook.com/fairtradefoundation

Cheap, throw-away clothing should be a thing of the past. Fair trade is revolutionising the clothing industry and providing a real alternative to sweat shops and child labour.

In this video Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame, talks about her experiences in Bangladesh and the massive difference that fair trade fashion can make and is making to producers in the developing world:

The run-up to Christmas is now in full swing and there is no better time to pledge to make your Christmas an ethical one.

And with the high street’s number one ethical shop [according to the Ethical Consumer magazine], Monsoon, today being exposed as having child labour and underpaid workers in its supply chain in the Observer newspaper; the best way to ensure that the products you buy are truly ethical, is to go fair trade.

Monsoon was nominated as the most ethical business on the UK high street because it has a strict ethical policy, and indeed it has reacted to the revelations about the unethical goings-on in its supply chain (which, incidentally, were discovered in the company’s own internal audits) by firing the sub-contractor responsible for employing children believed to be have been trafficked, and working together with an NGO to put the children in care homes until they can be reunited with their family.

This is all well and good, and Monsoon should be commended for dealing with the issues head on and doing all it can to prevent child labour and exploitation being part of its supply chain. But the problem is, the supply chains of the large high street shops are so long and convoluted that these practices will continue to be carried out by sub-contracters and, most of the time, the high street businesses won’t even know it is happening.

This is just one of the many reasons as to why fair trade is so fantastic. One of the basic principles of fair trade is transparency: keeping the supply chain short and making sure that there are no sub-contracters helping themselves to a great big chunk of the money designated for the work force.

The producers lie at the heart of fair trade. Often they work together in cooperatives, which then export their goods to the retailers in the West. The money paid by the retailers goes directly back to the cooperatives, where it is generally used to make the business more sustainable, to improve production methods and to provide education and training.

So, when you buy fairly traded products, you can rest safe in the knowledge that the goods weren’t made by children, stolen from their families to produce clothes and other products for western consumers. You know that the adults who have produced the goods will have been paid fairly and will be directly benefiting from your purchase.

With fair trade, your money goes where it belongs: to the people at the bottom of the supply chain; the people who have a lot less than we do; the people whose lives fair trade is transforming.

So let’s make this an ethical Christmas, and buy fair trade.

Not all “fair trade” products bear the Fairtrade Mark. In fact, this now famous logo can only be applied to a limited number of types of products: think fruit, vegetables, cotton, certain drinks and other foodstuffs.

The fact of the matter is, if your product does not belong to one of the categories for which the International Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) has created a process for certifying it fairtrade, it cannot bear the Fairtrade Mark, even if it ticks all the boxes and makes a significant improvement to the lives of the producers.

So what of products like jewellery and handicrafts? Shops like Shared Earth – now recognisable on the high streets of a number of lucky towns in Britain – and online stores like my very own By Hand Fair Trade Shop or The Fair Trade Store are fair trade shops, selling fair trade jewellery and handicrafts, but many of their products may not and do not bear the Fairtrade Mark because of the type of products they are, namely jewellery and handicrafts.

So what makes these products fair trade? And are they comparable to products bearing the Fairtrade Mark?

The World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) has been instrumental in developing fair trade across the globe over the last 20 years. The WFTO’s 10 standards of fair trade are the basis upon which the fair trade nature of the products in question are judged. These 10 standards must be adhered to as a minimum. In addition to these, for the products to be truly fair trade, either the producers, the exporter or the importer needs to be a registered member of the WFTO. This may seem like an unnecessary step that could limit and disadvantage the smallest producers and importers, but in reality it is a necessary requirement to ensure that the term “fair trade” is not bandied around and that it is only applied to organisations that have been independently audited by the WFTO and, as such, organisations that have been proven to be acting in line with the 10 standards of fair trade.

The 10 standards of fair trade:

1. Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers
2. Transparency and accountability
3. Fair trading practices
4. Payment of a fair price
5. No child labour or forced labour
6. Non-discrimination, gender equity and freedom of association
7. Safe and healthy working conditions
8. Capacity building
9. Promotion of fair trade
10. A sustainable approach to the environment

The products produced, imported or sold by members of the WFTO (= organisations that prove regularly to fulfil the 10 standards of fair trade) are fair trade products. Even though they may not fall into a category of product that can be awarded the Fairtrade Mark (e.g. foodstuff, drink, etc.) they are fair trade. And even though they do not bear the Fairtrade Mark (because it is not applicable to their type of product yet), they are as beneficial to producers working to improve the lives of their families and communities through trade as those products bearing the Fairtrade Mark.

As discussed in Fairtrade versus fair trade, there are two different types of fairtrade/fair trade and, as such, two different types of products: fairtrade products and fair trade products. In this blog I will discuss what makes a product fairtrade, whilst my next blog will focus on fair trade products.

If something is designated a fairtrade product it means that it has been awarded the Fair Trade Mark. This logo is a great way of making fairtrade products easy to spot in supermarket aisles and of raising awareness of fairtrade.

The Fairtrade Mark is awarded by the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK. In the early days, this mark was only awarded to products like coffee, chocolate and bananas. A lot of progress has been made, however, and the Fairtrade Mark can now be seen on a whole host of different products:

coffee, tea, hot chocolate, wine, beer, fruit juice
fresh fruit, including bananas, grapes, pineapples, grapefruits, lemons, etc.
dried fruit, biscuits, cereals, rice, honey
chocolate, sweets, cakes
flowers
cotton

The Fairtrade Foundation also recently announced the launch of fairtrade vegetables, and it is likely that more and more types of products will be added to the increasingly comprehensive list of items that can be bought in a fairtrade version.

If a product bears the Fairtrade Mark it means that it has passed stringent tests and fulfilled the strict standards set by the international fairtrade labelling body, or the FLO, of which the Fairtrade Foundation is the UK representative. These standards relate to three areas of development – social development, economic development and environmental development – and their objectives are as follows:

• to ensure a guaranteed Fairtrade minimum price which is agreed with producers
• to provide an additional Fairtrade premium which can be invested in projects that enhance social, economic and environmental development
• to enable pre-financing for producers who require it
• to emphasise the idea of partnership between trade partners
• to facilitate mutually beneficial long-term trading relationships
• to set clear minimum and progressive criteria to ensure that the conditions for the production and trade of a product are socially and economically fair and environmentally responsible.

The standards applied to products awarded the Fairtrade Mark are carefully developed by the FLO to suit the individual product in question. The standards go above and beyond guaranteeing a certain price for producers; they specify rules that must be followed by the producers, to ensure that a quality product is created, and by the wholesalers/retailers, to ensure that a fair trading relationship is formed.

As these fairtrade standards are created for specific products, the Fairtrade Mark can only be applied to products that have already had these standards developed. For producers of handicrafts and other goods, they must look to the World Fair Trade Organisation and fair trade. My next blog will look more closely at how fair trade works.

When I am not working for By Hand and doing my utmost to spread the fair trade word, I have a second life in which my days are spent with language. As such, it seems entirely appropriate that I write a blog about spelling.

There are two ways of writing fair trade – or fairtrade - and neither constitutes a mispelt word (although my spell-check appears to think that fairtrade is incorrect). In fact, the two different ways of spelling fair trade actually have two slightly different contexts:

The Fairtrade Foundation is the UK’s fairtrade labelling organisation. They are the guys in charge of the Fairtrade Mark in the UK and they represent the UK within the International Fairtrade Labelling Organisation, or the FLO.  They are the pioneers of fairtrade in the UK. They work with the FLO to make up the rules of what makes a product fairtrade, what companies have to do to be able to claim that their products are fairtrade, and how producers need to be treated in order to guarantee fairtrade certification. They own fairtrade (in the non-literal sense) and every product that carries the Fairtrade Mark is a fairtrade product.

Fair trade, on the other hand, has a broader existence: It is a concept of trade that benefits everyone in the supply chain, including the producers. It is a philosophy of cooperation and a movement that is demonstrating that there is no need to exploit and no room for the bullying tactics of those with the power/money. Fair trade has its own rules, as defined by the World Fair Trade Organisation* (or WFTO for short), and its own products. They do not carry the Fairtrade Mark, but they are fair trade because they have been created in line with the rules of fair trade, as stipulated by the WFTO.

Fair trade products and fairtrade products are equally fantastic. Both make a massive difference to the lives of the producers by the very nature of their existence. Fair trade is not better than fairtrade and vice versa. The simple difference is this: Fairtrade means it is recognised as fairtrade by the Fairtrade Foundation; fair trade means it fulfils the principles of fair trade stipulated by the WFTO.

* The WFTO is a global, democratic organisation that has been driving the global fair trade movement for the past 20 years. It’s members have a 100% commitment to fair trade and are monitored to ensure that they conform to the 10 principles of fair trade (see above). Members include producers, artisans and fair trade retailers.