In this Issue:
WFTO-Europe Meeting in June – Registration opens soon!
A look back at 2018 and important results – Lots of completed research on Fair Trade
Elections for the European Parliament 2019 – Campaign of the Trade Fair Live Fair Project
WFTO-Europe Submission on the European Commission Roadmap on Deforestation
Upcoming Grants and Fundraising Opportunities – a brief overview
International Women’s Day 2019
Fair Trade @ Trade Fairs 2019 – Upcoming Ambiente and BIOFACH Trade Fairs
Fair Trade Related News, Publications and other tools
Agenda:
8th – 13th February 2019:
Ambiente Trade Fair, Frankfurt, Germany
13th – 16th February 2019:
BIOFACH Trade Fair, Nuremberg, Germany
7th – 13th April 2019:
Fair Trade Tour in Palestine
8th March 2019:
International Women’s Day 2019
11th May 2019:
World Fair Trade Day 2019
23th – 26th May 2019:
European Parliament Elections
6th – 7th June 2019:
WFTO-Europe Gathering Meeting for Members
15th August 2019:
“Sponsorship Opportunities for the International Fair Trade Summit“, Lima, Peru
16th-19th September 2019:
“The International Fair Trade Summit”, Lima, Peru
Let us know about your events!
Dear members of WFTO-Europe,
Thanks to the Trade Fair Live Fair project, WFTO-Europe would like to invite all of you to come to Brussels for a 2-day training session on the 6th and 7th of June.
The meeting will be free of charge and members will be only asked to pay for their own travel and accommodation.
This gives us the opportunity to be at your service and support your activities more, by providing training on key topics, as well as strengthen our collaboration, by having strategical and operational discussions on our European movement.
The 2 day meeting will be indeed a combination of a public event and private sessions. This would allow us to combine our dual souls as a network who wants to promote market access for our members as well as advocate for global trade justice. The gathering meeting will end with the Annual General Meeting, including a section on the new governance of WFTO and the elections of new Board members.
We thank all of you who participated in the recent survey we circulated in last month. We ensured you that all your feedback have been highly considered and included in the draft programme of the event as much as possible.
In the next days, we will send you the official invitation, the draft programme together with the registration form. Therefore we strongly advise you to regularly look at your email in the next weeks in order not to miss this communication.
In the meantime, please do pencil the dates on your diary and be sure not to miss this opportunity. We are in a turning point in our network and your participation is essential to shape the way ahead.
Looking forward to welcoming you in Brussels,
Francesca Giubilo
WFTO-Europe Regional Coordinator
Trade Fair Live Fair Project – A Look Back at 2018 and Important Results
Last year was both the end of Year 1 and the beginning of Year 2 of the Trade Fair Live Fair project. Since this is our main project until August of 2020, we wish to share with you some important results from 2018, and to anticipate some events and developments for 2019. For 2018, in particular, lots of new research on Fair Trade was completed, all of what we will share here was funded by the Trade Fair Live Fair project.
Events of 2018:
- International Women’s Day in March 2018: We shared Fair Trade stories with a women empowerment and gender equality-focus. Read or re-read the stories here.
- World Fair Trade Day in May 2018: We compiled a video with our members presenting themselves and their Fair Trade work. Watch or re-watch it here.
At the same occasion we promoted the theme: Live Fair, one Fair Trade product at a time to celebrate the growing number of people willing to pay for ethical and sustainable products like Fair Trade. (Re)Visit it here. - The WFTO-Europe Biennial Conference in June, which also featured the public event: Universalizing the Fair Trade principles for an EU sustainable – and fair – production and consumption agenda. This was co-organised with the Fair Trade Advocacy Office and was attended by members but also Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) outside of our membership. We expect to replicate the format this year in June to foster partnerships between members and other CSOs – and thanks to the Trade Fair Live Fair project funding by the European Commission we can invite you free of charge. For more information, please look at the first article of this newsletter.
- For COP24 in December, we published a Policy Statement for COP24 done in collaboration with a large part of the Fair Trade movement. This lays out our generally agreed position on how Fair Trade contributes to Climate Justice.
Research of 2018:
- Coordinatora Estatal de Comercio Justo: Fair Trade and Sustainable Development Goals – Investigates how the 10 Fair Trade Principles fit with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda.
- Fashion Revolution: Transparency Index 2018 – The famous index of how much fashion brands share about their supply chains…
- Fashion Revolution: Consumer Survey 2018 – A survey involving app. 5,000 people in the five biggest EU member states – Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and UK – which shows that social impacts of products matter for 38% and environmental impacts matter for 37% of consumers across these five markets.
- Commerce Équitable France: Coffee – The Success Story that Hides a Crisis – Value created in the coffee industry has increased tremendously in recent years, though the share going to farmers and primary producers has actually decreased in relative terms. This reasserts the importance of better value distribution in coffee supply chains. The study shows that Fairtrade certification works, and works particularly well in combination with organic certification. Especially, Fair Trade helps significantly mitigate external costs for producers and their communities linked to coffee production, and bring farmers closer to a living wage.
- Oxfam Magasins du Monde: Fair Trade Textiles and Decent Work – Oxfam-Magasins du monde’s comparative analysis of 4 Indian fair trade organisations has shown that fair trade leads to significant improvement relative to the conventional textile sector
- Traidcraft Exchange: The Estate They’re In – research focused on the tea supply chain, and the roles and responsibilities of different actors in addressing the poor pay and living conditions on tea estates in Assam, in North East India.
If you are eager to read more about the above research and the main policy recommendations, please have a look at the TFLF Synthesis Report.
To anticipate in 2019:
- International Women’s Day on 8th March, where two reports will be published by WFTO Global on how Fair Trade is empowering women and facilitating women in leadership and management positions.
- WFTO-Europe Review 2019 – a publication promoting stories from WFTO-Europe’s members on their contributions to the SDGs through their work on Fair Trade. It will be published in March, and we are currently collecting stories via this survey. Please participate so we can promote your work as best practices for the SDGs.
- Campaign on the European Parliament Elections kicking off in April. Please share with us your plans for campaigns. We are happy to support your efforts and to help increase your outreach on Social Media and other communication channels.
- WFTO-Europe gathering event & AGM in June, with a public session on Fair Trade as an alternative business model and its contribution to both social and climate justice. Further, there will be sessions on Internal Monitoring System, Northern Fair Trade producers, as well as training on the Fair Payment Process, with Rain Morgan and our research consultant, Peter Williams.
Finally, we are publishing our research in June this year on the Fair Payment Process and recommendations for implementing it and up-scaling it to mainstream businesses as well. We will make sure to keep you informed as we get closer to the publishing date.
Looking forward to working with you in 2019!
WFTO-Europe team
Europe in a nutshell
Elections for the European Parliament 2019 – Campaign of the Trade Fair Live Fair Project
From May 23rd to 26th this year, elections for the European Parliament (EP) will be held (date differs per member state). The Trade Fair Live Fair project is targeting this as an opportunity to get more Members of the European Parliament (MEP’s) that will actively support Fair Trade and engage with the Fair Trade movement in their work in the European Parliament.
Many may remember the campaign “Vote for Fair Trade” (Vote4FT), which took place around the EP elections of 2014. For this campaign, volunteers approached MEP candidates with the Fair Trade Manifesto, including Fair Trade demands for the candidate to sign to pledge her or his support for these demands after being elected. While this was a very effective and successful campaign, the FTAO has developed a new approach for this year’s elections:
Members of WFTO-Europe in general are encouraged to:
- Request a meeting with a MEP candidate likely to get elected.
- Discuss Fair Trade-related issues with MEP at the meeting.
- Then provide the candidate with one of our iconic speech-bubbles, but blank.
- The candidate then writes in the speech-bubble her or his own commitment related to Fair Trade, which they pledge to work towards if being elected.
- Take a photo with the candidate holding the speech-bubble.
- Share the photo on Social Media.
Partners and affiliates to the Trade Fair Live Fair project are required to at least do the above as part of the campaign.
However, other activities are also highly encouraged. Such activities could be to invite candidates to debates at world shops, where the pictures with speech-bubbles can be taken on the same occasion. Feel free to organise different other activities as part of the EP elections campaign.
If you share your plans or the stories from the events with us at WFTO-Europe, we are happy to support you and help increase visibility by sharing photos and other material via our communication channels.
FTAO is currently developing campaign material, information and toolkits, which will be shared when ready – probably some time in February.
In December, 2018, the European Commission (EC) published a roadmap on “Deforestation and Forest Degradation.” WFTO-Europe submitted feedback for this on 15th January, stressing poverty as a root cause driving marginalised producer communities of products like coffee and cocoa to clear forest to increase land for cultivation.
In its feedback, WFTO-Europe called on the European Commission to include in its policies against deforestation legally binding measures. So far, only voluntary measures have been considered, though they are much less effective in addressing the issues and bringing change in corporate malpractices. In particular, we have – together with the FTAO, Fern and other Civil Society Organisations – called for the implementation of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) legislation also in this area, which would be the best means towards mitigating the issue of deforestation while at the same time safe-guarding the rights and livelihoods of the most vulnerable groups in those international supply chains that contribute in particular to deforestation and forest degradation.
The Roadmap itself is “non-legislative,” which means it will, most likely, not in itself lead to legislation on the area. The EC has already in March 2018, conducted a feasibility study concluding that new legislation would be most effective in addressing deforestation.
There is still reason to be hopeful, since the EU Timber Regulation, banning wood from illegal logging from being exported to the EU, developed out of a similar process. The so-called Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan was agreed in 2003, and did not contain any mention of regulation. Instead, it laid out a process of reviewing feasibility and impact, which eventually led to the EU Timber Regulation that came into force in 2013. In fact, Fern, FTAO, others and WFTO-Europe, all referred the EC to exactly this regulation to highlight what kind of measures would be needed.
Both coffee and cocoa, among other agricultural products, are mentioned in the EC roadmap as so-called Forest Risk Agricultural Commodities (FRAC’s). Indeed, the study on coffee by le BASIC commissioned by Commerce Équitable France and Max Haavelar France, tells a similar story: Being unable to get a decent price for their product, coffee farmers and workers are driven to clear forest to get more land to increase their yields.
This is where Fair Trade takes action: Le BASIC’s study shows that Fairtrade certification has positively impacted deforestation – among other things – by moving farmers and workers closer to the local living wage. In combination with organic certification, results were even better (read more about the study in our “Synthesis Report” article here).
This further substantiates our claim that Fair Trade is an alternative business model that contributes to sustainable development, production and consumption. It is a holistic model, which avoids the excesses of the prevailing economic models by putting people and planet before a narrow focus on profit at all costs.
Upcoming Grants and Fundraising Opportunities – a brief overview
In this article we want to give you a brief overview of some grants and fundraising opportunities we have identified. Feel free to request support from us at WFTO-Europe, or to involve us if you envision some role for WFTO-Europe in a project you are considering.
If you apply for any of the calls, we would be happy to be informed. We can always help promoting your project or increase awareness via our Social Media and other communications channels.
- Sub- grants program for campaigns around European Parliament Elections.
- The overall objective of this sub-grant program is to support CSOs with their activities linked to the 2019 EP elections campaign around Sustainable Production and Consumption (SDG 12) in Southern Europe and EU13 MS.
- Deadline for applications is 22 February 2019, 16:00 CET
- Find more information here.
- Sub- grants program for innovative partnerships between CSOs and Local Authorities.
- The overall objective of this sub-grant scheme is to support small advocacy projects implemented through partnerships between local authorities (LAs) and civil society organisations (CSOs), with the aim to promote sustainable production and consumption.
- Deadline for application submission is 29 March 2019 by 17:00 CET
- Find more information here.
Please note that interested applicants can submit applications to both sub-grant programs above, but are eligible to receive only one sub-grant in total. TFLF consortium members are not eligible to receive the sub-grants.
- Make Europe Sustainable for All.
- The call provides funding for “local groups, grass-root organisations, and other civil society actors working at the local level in order to strengthen their capacity, knowledge sharing and exchange on the implementation, monitoring of the SDGs, and to raise awareness of the transformative role SDGs can have for every EU citizen and their role in promoting the Agenda 2030.”
- There are 2 lots
- 3 projects of max. €2,000 will be allocated to each of the 15 project countries.
- 6 projects of max. €7,500 is open for applicants from all 15 countries.
- Deadline: 15 February 2019
- Find more information (including the 15 eligible countries) here.
WFTO around the World
International Women’s Day 2019
On 8th March we celebrate International Women’s Day by showcasing Fair Trade women who are leading and taking active roles. On the occasion of this important day WFTO global on gender equity in the work place and on business models that empower women.
Fair Trade espouses gender equality through female leadership and economic empowerment. As the reports will stress, most Fair Trade Enterprises worldwide are run by women. We are pioneering new mission-led models of business where women take charge and share a clear message: More women leaders for gender equality and sustainable development!
The International Women’s Day campaign along with the two reports by WFTO global are part of the Trade Fair Live Fair project funded by the European Commission. Please give the campaign and research more visibility on Social Media with #TradeFairLiveFair
Join WFTO’s celebration for International Women’s Day:
WFTO’s Celebration Guide for the International Women’s Day 2019 gives you some great ideas on how you, as a member, can take action and stand up for more women leaders, gender equality and sustainable development.
#1: “Herstory-telling”
- Share your stories of exceptional women leaders who are making a difference to other people and communities.
- A story-telling template as well as social media templates are available here.
#2: Enterprise tour showcasing women’s leadership for local school children
- Gender equality starts early!
- Contribute your part by giving school children role models of female leaders.
#3 Getting supporters and the public involved
- Campaigners, women networks, thought leaders and other movements – share the gender reports and encourage them to talk about the outcomes of the reports.
- Encourage them to use our message and share our videos and infographics.
For more information on these activities and for supporting material, click here.
Curious about what WFTO-Europe is planning for International Women’s Day? Keep posted on our social media channels and our website to find out what our European office has planned. If you have any activities planned for this year’s International Women’s Day and would like to share them with our WFTO network, please get in touch with us: communication[at]wfto-europe.org
Fair Trade @ Trade Fairs 2019 – Upcoming Ambiente and BIOFACH Trade Fairs
Trade fairs are a great way to present your products, network with other protagonists from your sector and promote fair trade products to a broader public. In February you will have two fantastic opportunity to do so.
AMBIENTE FAIR TRADE
From 8th to 12th February Messe Frankfurt in Germany will host the Ambiente Fair Trade – a meeting place for leading enterprises in Dining, Living and Giving. Ambiente is one of the largest and most important forums for global sourcing with numerous exhibitions, presentations, competitions and events demonstrating future-shaping ideas.
And there is good news for the Fair Trade sector: The focus on sustainable and Fair Trade products at Ambiente has been growing for years. With the “Ethical Style Guide” the trade fair has established a significant contribution for this segment, which helps visitors to quickly identify the relevant exhibitors due to a clear labelling. The number of companies identified as ethical has now reached 248 – all of them particularly committed to recourse-friendly, fair and sustainable working methods.
Since Ambiente is a great platform to promote ethical enterprises, we are very happy to hear that also some of our WFTO-Europe members will be attending the trade fair as exhibitors. So far:
WFTO Global will profile the efforts of members to pioneer upcycling and circular economy production models through a press conference at Ambiente. It will take place on 10th February and will be followed by a session for individual WFTO members to meet with journalists and get increased visibility. If you are attending Ambiente and have an upcycling story to tell, please email Michael: michael@wfto.com.
BIOFACH
From 13th until 16th February the BIOFACH trade fair on organic food will take place in Nuremberg, Germany. BIOFACH is one of the world’s leading trade fair for organic food, promoting high quality products and conviction for a responsible use of natural resources. It is a meeting point for producers and stakeholders to discuss the market’s latest trends as well as forthcoming market issues and to jointly frame policies of the organic sector. The organic food industry is a market of the future and this future has to be shaped in a joint network. We encourage our members to use settings such as BIOFACH to build up and expand these networks.
If you are attending Ambiente or BIOFACH and would like to share your experience with other WFTO-Europe members, please get in touch with us so we can spread your stories: communication@wfto-europe.de. We wish all our members who visit the fairs or participate as exhibitors much fun and success!
The WFTO Guarantee System
Update on WFTO-Europe membership and GS status
At present our network counts 102 members in total, among which 53 have been granted Guaranteed Status. At the regional level we are currently processing 4 new membership requests.
For 2019, we are pleased to already have welcomed one new provisional member: Greater Goods from the UK. Also, we congratulate this issue’s member in the spotlight Zotter for having become our new Guaranteed Member!
News from the Regions
In December it was time to say goodbye to our interns Flora and Benedetto. Thank you very much for your great support! At the same time we are happy to welcome Theresa from Germany, our new communication and outreach assistant. Also we are looking forward to welcoming Paloma from Spain, our administration and project assistant starting February.
News from the Board
Please log in here if you want to access all minutes from the Board Meetings held by WFTO-Europe. The last one took place on the 25th of January 2019 in Rome.
Member in the Spotlight: Zotter Schokoladen Manufaktur
Zotter chocolates from Austria rely on quality, variety, creativity and sustainability – they are 100% organic and fair. According to an international chocolate test, Josef Zotter is one of the best chocolatiers in the world. His factory ranks as one of the most sustainable undertakings in Austria and his handmade chocolates are a cult article. No wonder that a visit to the factory is one of the most popular excursions in the region.All Zotter chocolates are made by the firm itself – from the bean to the table, bean-to-bar, in pure organic and fair quality. 180 dedicated employees work in the chocolate factory in Styria. There are currently more than 400 different items in the product range.
Zotter focuses on innovation. It’s important for us to offer a wide and varied range of products – from classics like Butter Caramel and Raspberry to eccentric creations like Bread Break, created with bread schnapps made from organic bread leftovers. We offer more than 400 different chocolate varieties, and the new season will bring 21 new, hand-scooped chocolates. We typically introduce between 30 and 70 new products per year. And who comes up with all those amazing ideas? Josef Zotter of course, although lately he’s had quite a bit of help from his daughter Julia, the other creative mind in the family business. Experiments are our passion and we use our own in-house bean-to-bar manufactory to develop new ideas and products.
We buy our cocoa directly from our farmers, pay way above the world market price and support them continuously, so they stick with quality and fine flavour cocoa varieties like Criollo, Trinitario, Nacional and Nativo and are therefore no longer dependent on the world market, which trades chiefly in bulk cocoa. We often travel to our cocoa growing regions in order to meet our cocoa farmers and conversely, we invite them over to visit our manufactory. Great interpersonal relationships make for a very special product quality.
All the ingredients for the chocolate come from organic cultivation and we follow the 10 principles of fair trade according to WFTO and we emphasise physical traceability and direct trade with our farmers. For more on this, go to www.zotter.at/en/about-zotter/organic-fair-trade-green/fair.html The protection of the environment is a very important aspect of our corporate philosophy. Our environmental protection and our environmental measures are ISO 14001 and EMAS certified.
Fair Trade Related News, Publications and Other Tools
General news on Fair Trade: