Mainstreaming Fairtrade – The Great Debate
The Fairtrade internets have been abuzz with the recent announcement that Nestlé’s KitKat bar is going Fairtrade. Nestlé’s announcement comes in the same year as the announcement made by two other large multinationals – Starbucks and Cadbury’s –that they too were going Fairtrade. The ‘mainstreaming of fair trade’ is a trend that is definitely picking up momentum. However, it is also causing a schism amongst the fair trade campaigners and devotees.
On one side you have those that believe that putting fair trade in the mainstream should be one of the principal goals of the scheme; increased demand in Fairtrade products in the developed world means more producers in the developing world reaping the rewards of Fairtrade (Fairtrade minimum price, Fairtrade premium, etc.).
On the other side you have those that believe that giving Fairtrade certification to multinationals with dubious records of corporate social responsibility is simply a prosperous marketing ploy allowing them to play on the heartstrings of the ethically minded consumer. Further, there are those that believe that mainstreaming Fairtrade simply exacerbates the conditions that caused the disparity in the first place.
As more and more multinational corporations begin to test the Fairtrade waters, the debate surrounding the mainstreaming of fair trade is going to get louder. In an effort to reveal the salient points of both sides of the debate, we have assembled 5 influential bloggers who have written blog posts stating their respective positions on the subject. I invite you to read their posts and join the discussion.
Joe Turner from the self titled blog and on Twitter @gentlemandad
As you can tell by the title of the blog, a black day for fairtrade, Joe takes the position against mainstreaming Fairtrade.Joe believes that the Fairtrade Foundation gave Nestlé the ethical pass it wanted and has lost all credibility as a result.
Dr Scott John from The Other blog and on Twitter @otherdiscovery
Scott’s blog post, ‘Should Fair Trade be Mainstreamed? NO WAY!’, takes an intelligent, academic approach in arguing against mainstreaming Fairtrade. In his post Scott identifies the top four “Mainstream Unfairs” and analyses how mainstreaming Fairtrade addresses each.
Jonathan Morgan from the Make Things Fair blog and on Twitter @MakeThingsFair
In ‘Fairtrade: Just Another Target Group?’, Jonathan takes the other side of the debate and argues that the recent Nestlé announcement is just one small victory and that we must continue to be diligent in our fight for trade justice. He also emphasizes that purchasing power is only one form of activism in our arsenal.
Rob Greenland from the Social Business blog and on Twitter @TheSocBiz
The principal argument in Rob’s post, ‘Who does fairtrade work for most?’, is that more producers benefit from Fairtrade as more and more products produced by multinationals become Fairtrade certified. An argument he’s heard firsthand from fair trade producers.
Stephanie Celt from theFairtrade London Campaign and on Twitter @FairtradeLondon
As the title would suggest, ‘Fairtrade Kit Kats and mainstreaming Fairtrade: Pros and Cons’, Stephanie does a fantastic job of presenting sound arguments from both sides of the debate. Regardless of which side of the debate you may fall, Stephanie’s conclusion summed it up nicely: In the end, perhaps the way forward is for Fairtrade supporters and campaigners to pledge that, no matter what products and companies carry the FAIRTRADE Mark, our role should always be to press for more.
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Comments
Further context on Nestlé ‘mainstreaming’ Fairtrade.
The Fairtrade premium for sourcing the cocoa for its 4-bar KitKat will cost it less than £400,000 based on the figures in the Fairtrade Foundation press release (US$ 150 per tonne for 4,300 tonnes).
At the moment, Nestlé is spending £43 million on a Nescafé advertising campaign in the UK.
So for less than 1% of the cost of an advertising campaign it has global publicity leading people to believe it is solving the problems in the Ivory Coast instead of being part of the problem.
Not only that, it has the UK Minister for Trade and Development defending its practices in developing countries.
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/12/nestle-kitkat-minister.html
You frame the ‘two sides’ of this issue a little misleadingly I feel. Those who criticise the award of Fairtrade certification to Nestlé in my experience do so not on the grounds that it has been given to a multinational, but that the hurdle has been set so low. For example, when Nestlé received Fairtrade certification for its Partners’ Blend coffee involving 0.02% of its coffee purchase – which it then used in a national advertising campaign – Equal Exchange said: “We have long recommended that for large corporations the Fair Trade starting point should be 5% of their total imports. Given Nestlé’s dismal track record on many fronts in the developing world, they have an even steeper credibility hill to climb than most, and should in fact begin even higher than 5%. Large companies tend to subsidize their modest Fair Trade purchases by paying farmers much lower prices on the rest of their coffee imports.”
http://www.equalexchange.coop/fair-trade-coffee-pioneer-questions-nestles-entry-into-market
With regard to cocoa, Nestlé has failed to live up to its 2001 commitment to the Horkins-Engel Protocol for ending child slavery in its cocoa supply chain and boycotted a meeting called by Senator Horkins to discuss why. From the media coverage of the Fairtrade KitKat announcement one could believe that Nestlé’s move is solving the child labour/slavery issue when in reality it is part of the problem and has been taken to court in the US because of this, a case it is still fighting.
Fairtrade certification is very valuable for a company and more so for a company with a record such as Nestlé. If this was appreciated more by the Fairtrade Foundation and it was a little more savvy, it could demand more from corporations such as Nestlé. Instead there is a danger that providing certification for a relatively insignificant commitment allows business as usual to continue. Yes, 6,000 farmers benefit, which is great for them, but what about the suppliers of the 99% of the cocoa Nestlé sources outside the scheme? Nestlé is going to launch a national advertising campaign in January for Fairtrade KitKat, which undoubtedly will drown out the civil society organisations calling for action on the Horkins-Engel Protocol.
The award to Partners’ Blend was trailed as the Trojan Horse that would transform Nestlé’s coffee business, but four years on it remains the only Nestlé Fairtrade coffee.
My analysis, as Baby Milk Action Campaigns and Networking Coordinator, can be found at:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/11/nestle-fairtrade-kitkat.html