When is "Fair Trade" Really Fair Trade?

In grocery stores and shopping malls across the country, products of every kind are competing for your conscience.

            From coffee to fruit, clothing to flowers, companies now offer shoppers an array of socially conscious choices. Labeling their products “ethical” or “fair trade,” they hope to entice you with promises of environmentally responsible manufacturing and worker-friendly production.

            But how can you be sure these products are living up to their claims? With so many fair trade labels making so many promises, the selection can be daunting.

            In Canada, there are no national regulations to determine when a company can label its products fair trade. That means there is nothing to stop a company that pollutes the environment or uses child labour from calling itself ethical, just to make a sale.

            As a result, the market has become swamped, leaving well-meaning consumers to separate fair trade fact from fiction.

            “I feel bad for the average consumer,” says Gavin Fridell, author of Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market Driven Social Justice. “It’s hard to have a fair trade market when everything out there is claiming to be ethical.”

            There’s no doubt Canadians are a responsible bunch, but finding products where fair trade is more than just a marketing angle can be challenging. In 2006, more than 450 tonnes of fair trade-labeled coffee sold in Canada was not actually certified – meaning it’s impossible to know how ethical it actually was.

            The trick, Fridell says, is to look for products that are officially certified and labeled by independent fair trade organizations, like TransFair Canada.

            “If you want the gold standard of ethical certification, it’s the TransFair label,” he says.

            TransFair Canada has been certifying fair trade products since 1997. It’s part of an elaborate system of international organizations that monitor every step of a product’s life, from production to packaging, to ensure it complies with global fair trade standards.

            Products that bear TransFair’s distinctive black-and-white label (or the blue, black and green label of its international counterpart) must meet strict guidelines relating to environmental protection, workers’ rights and community development.

            “Fair trade seeks to change the terms of trade for the products we buy – to ensure the farmers and artisans behind those products get a better deal,” explains TransFair’s website.

            TransFair-labeled coffee, chocolate, wine and other products can be found in stores across the country. In fact, more than 240 companies are registered with Transfair – up from just 30 a decade ago.

            Another label to look for belongs to the World Fair Trade Organization, which certifies co-ops, retailers and others that are committed to ethical production. It adheres to “10 Standards of Fair Trade” and offers its multi-coloured label only to those that meet its standards.

            More than 320 organizations are registered with the World Fair Trade Organization, including the retailer Ten Thousand Villages, which has 50 stores in Canada.

            Of course, if a product or company doesn’t have one of these labels, that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t fair trade. Official certification can be costly, making it difficult for some small businesses to obtain.

            The best advice is to do your research to ensure the products you buy meet your ethical standards. Definitions of fair trade vary, so be sure you are comfortable with what you are buying. Don’t be afraid to call a company and ask about its fair trade policy.

            If a company isn’t certified, it should have a good reason. And it should be very clear about exactly what its fair trade claims include and how they are verified. It is possible, after all, for a company to be environmentally friendly yet have poor labour standards.

            For Fridell, local, independently run retailers are often the best sources of fair trade products. “You get a much broader sense of the authenticity of what you are buying,” he says.

            So the next time you’re in the market for something fair trade, remember that not all ethical claims are misleading. There are plenty of products on store shelves that meet high standards of responsible production.

            You just have to know how to find them.