The climate crisis is an immediate and ever-increasing threat and those in climate vulnerable countries are already seeing its impacts from droughts and crop disease to floods, heatwaves and shrinking harvests.
What is Fairtrade?
The Fairtrade Foundation explains Fairtrade as ‘a system of certification aiming to ensure a set of standards are met in the production and supply of a product or ingredient’.
- For farmers it means… workers rights, safer working conditions and fairer pay.
- For shoppers it means… high quality, ethically produced products.
Why are we proud to be Fairtrade?
- Fairtrade standards allow farmers to invest in climate friendly farming techniques.
- Fairtrade helps to increase standards of living for farmers and workers.
- The Fairtrade Minimum Price provides a safety net meaning they can have better cash flow and greater access to credit.
- Fairtrade standards protect safe working conditions and prohibits discrimination and illegal child labour.
- Fairtrade believes gender equality is important and have 350,000 women farmers and workers as part of Fairtrade.
What are we doing as a University?
- We are part of the Fairtrade accreditation for universities; working to increase the numbers of Fairtrade products purchased on campus alongside awareness and education.
- Our Fairtrade Policy outlines our commitment to increasing ethically supplied products to the consumer, whilst our Fairtrade Action Plan outlines our pathway to accreditation success.
- Our Fairtrade Impact Report covers what we have achieved on Fairtrade, trade justice and ethical consumption whilst setting SMART targets for higher progress.
- We host an annual Ethical Food Fairtrade fortnight, between February and March. Our previous Fairtrade fortnight highlights can be found here.
- We produce Fairtrade surveys to gain insights from students around their attitudes, knowledge and suggestions around Fairtrade at our university. Survey results can be found here.
How do I know if a product is Fairtrade?
In all of our cafes, just look out for the Fairtrade logo! You can find Fairtrade tea, coffee, sugar, hot chocolate, snacks such as chocolate, brownies, flapjacks and fruit and juice.
Each outlet should have a clear section in the outlet of the Fairtrade products they sell. This may incorporate the green and blue colour scheme. If a product has the Fairtrade logo on it, it means it is Fairtrade certified!
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Opportunities for Students to Investigate Fairtrade
A great way to make any coursework or dissertation question unique, up-to-date and relevant is to base it around current affairs and future topics which affect and will affect industries, careers and personal lives worldwide. Fairtrade and the role of ethical rights and supply chains could pose an interesting topic.
Examples of Coursework / Project Ideas:
- Creating a campaign on Fairtrade’s impact on climate change, how students engage with the brand, how lives of Fairtrade farmers have improved, or the impact on women farmers.
- Set up a debate, assigning groups to represent different parties involved in Fairtrade and what the impacts and challenges may be.
- Look into the law around Fairtrade, compare different countries requirements and ask the question; is there enough law supporting Fairtrade?
Fairtrade Living Labs:
Living Labs bring an opportunity for students, academic staff, professional staff and external bodies to collaborate on projects looking at real-life sustainability problems. On Fairtrade, there are topics of research that could be investigated; look at what the Fairtrade Foundation is doing and it helps address key social, environmental, and economic issues.
You can undertake a literature review on the subject to help develop a dissertation question. Remember research can also be applied to how the university, our caterers and our outlet customers consider sustainability within business or in their lives as consumers. Click here for more information.
Supporting You
If investigating Fairtrade in your coursework or dissertation has sparked your interest, please email sustainability@gre.ac.uk. We would love to hear about it and can support if required!
