Some updates from WFTO-Europe: new co-opted Board members, next Biennial Conference and upcoming webinars!

On the 14th of October WFTO-Europe Board members gathered in Brussels for a one day physical Board meeting. Amongst others, a first brainstorming on the next 3 years strategic and financial plans, the next Biennial Conference in Athens in June 2020 and the co-optation of new Board members were items on the agenda.  Please find below a sum up of the main decisions taken as well as the upcoming activities of WFTO-Europe:

Co-opted Board members

WFTO-Europe Board welcomed and unanimously approved the two candidatures received from Cassandre Maury (Les Jardins de Gaia-France) and Jean-Christophe Galland (CMC Malongo-France). From now on, they will be involved in the Board activities as co-opted Board members by the current Board, but their nomination will be officially approved and ratified by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in June 2020.

For your information, based on this latest update, the Board is now composed by the following members:

Juanjo Martinez (Oxfam Intermon – President)

Stephanie Brookes (Traidcraft Exchange – Treasurer)

Giorgio Dal Fiume (Equogarantito – Secretary)

Estelle Vanwembeke (Oxfam Magasins du Monde)

Cassandre Maury (Les Jardins de Gaia – co-opted member)

Jean-Christophe Galland (CMC Malongo – co-opted member)

We also remind you of the following roles:

Sophie Tack – re-appointed for her second mandate in June 2019 as WFTO-European representative at WFTO Global Board

Giorgio Dal Fiume – elected in Lima 2020 as Independent Chair within the WFTO Global Board

Francesca Giubilo – appointed by the Board in April 2018 to represent WFTO-Europe within FTAO Board of Directors.

Strategic plan

The Board went through a first reflection on the next strategic plan. As anticipated to all the members in June 2019 in Brussels, this time WFTO-Europe is seeking for a stronger engagement from members in the elaboration of the strategic plan. From now until April 2020, two rounds of consultations with members have been foreseen to collect members’ feedback and include their comments on the final draft to be approved during the next AGM.

WFTO-Europe Biennial Conference

We are happy to inform you that the next Biennial Conference of WFTO-Europe will be hosted by Syn Allois, our provisional member from Greece and will take place in Athens from 3^rd to 5^th of June 2020. Please do pencil these dates on your diary already and make sure you will not miss this opportunity to join us and discuss with us the way ahead for our European network. Registrations will be open at the end of January/beginning of February 2020. A draft agenda will be circulated to you at that time.

Maternity leave and new Coordinator ad interim 

We remind you that from the 13 of November until the end of April, Francesca Giubilo, coordinator at WFTO-Europe, will be on maternity leave. She will be back on May and working part-time until September. Leida Rijnhout will cover her maternity leave on a part-time basis, focusing especially on the development of the next strategic plan as well as on the organisation of the next Biennial Conference and Annual General Meeting on June 2020. Leida has a wide professional experience in different fields in the NGO sector, from Fair Trade to environmental issues and already started working at the WFTO-Europe office in Brussels since the 14th of October. Please do note that from the 12 of November all emails addressed to coordination@wfto-europe.org will be re-directed to Leida’s account: membership@wfto-europe.org.

WFTO-Europe webinars

Following up on the main decisions taken in the “Connect & Act” Members meeting in Brussels in June 2019, WFTO-Europe is organizing two webinars in the next 2 weeks on the Retailers and Worldshops associations and on Domestic Fair Trade.

The webinar on Retailers and Worldshops Associations will take place on the 28th October 11.30-1.00 (Brussels time) and will be structured in the following way:

• Update on what has been done so far by WFTO-Europe for retailers associations
• Presentation of 1 successful story of the last years to share with the group & discussion on areas where the exchange of information and knowledge would be helpful
• Brainstorm about the needs and support to be received by WFTO-Europe and Global for the upcoming 3 years (2020-2023) and how such an exchange could be realized (regular working group meetings via video conference, yearly face-to-face-meetings…).

The second webinar on Domestic Fair Trade will be held together with WFTO Global on the 4th Nov 11.30-1.00 (Brussels time), and it aims at:

• Clarifying the concept of Domestic Fair Trade (Membership criteria for Northern Fair Trade producers)
• What concretely this means for existing members and new actors
• Questions and Answers
• Next steps – what needs to be done at European or Global level to support members

The webinars are exclusively intended for members. If you would like to receive the instructions on how to join the webinar, please do send an email to Federica Pastore at communication@wfto-europe.org.

The European Fair Train: Italy, Central & Eastern Europe, Belgium

During the last months our Fair Train traveled far and wide, touching different countries: Italy first of all, then a tour of Central and Eastern European countries where Wfto-Europe members are present and Belgium, home of Wfto-Europe office. Read more…

New Video: Board Meeting October 2019

On the 14^th of October the Wfto-Europe Board members met in Brussels for a one day physical meeting. Here is a sneak peek of the gathering and an invitation from Wfto-Europe President Juanjo Martinez to join the Annual General Meeting 2020.

Europe in a nutshell

Two Years of Trade Fair Live Fair Project

On September 1st this year the Trade Fair Live Fair project entered its third and final project year. The project is funded by the European Commission under the DEAR programme and began in September 2017. Year two was full of activities for us at WFTO-Europe and in anticipation of the final efforts to be done in the coming 11 months left of the project, we wish to share with you the main highlights of the past 12 months.

Activities of TFLF project year 2 (Sep-2018 to Aug-2019)

• COP24 Policy Statement (December 2018) was a collaboration of a large part of the Fair Trade movement, which established an agreed position on how the different models of Fair Trade are crucial for achieving Climate Justice and safe-guarding those that are worst hit while having contributed the least to causing Climate Change. Read it here.
• International Women’s Day (8^th March 2019) featured a video with statements by WFTO-Europe’s own women leaders – regional coordinator Francesca Giubilo along with board members Gabriella D’Amico and Stephanie Brookes. They highlighted the key findings of WFTO Global’s two reports on how Fair Trade facilitates women to assume a standing commensurate with their abilities within a business. View and read / re-view and re-read the video and reports here, but above all please share / re-share!
• World Fair Trade Day 2019 (11^th May) also featured a video with concrete examples of some of the many of WFTO-Europe’s incredibly innovative members and their ingenious products. Learn what elephant’s poo and postcards from Peru could possibly have in common here!
• WFTO-Europe Review 2019, published on 22^nd May highlights some of our members and how their best Fair Trade practices are contributing to the realization of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Be reminded what examples to tell policy-makers and mainstream business to support and follow by clicking here. A 2020 edition will be forthcoming, so please get in touch if you have good Fair Trade practices, projects or experiences from your own enterprise to share with us! (contact Mikkel Norgard at projects@wfto-europe.org).
• Public event: “The Role of Mission-led Business Models in Achieving Global Social and Environmental Justice” co-organised with the FTAO on 6^th June (part of the “Connect and Act” conference) gathered Fair Trade enterprises and actors from like-minded movements like organic, environmental, and Social and Solidarity Economy, for highlighting the inherent link between social and environmental justice and for discussing ways to collaborate on shared goals. Read more here.
• “Connect & Act” conference on 6^th and 7^th June comprised workshops, trainings, discussions and networking opportunities for WFTO-Europe members and prospective organisations. Focus was on the Northern Fair Trade concept, improving retailer models to support importers among members, as well as on the Fair Payment Process (FPP) with preliminary findings from research on the implementation by WFTO-Europe members (see below).
• Research: “Implementing SDG #8 through the WFTO Fair Payment Process” published in July and comprised by findings on the FPP implementation and how it contributes in particular to SDG 8, along with good practices for best safeguarding Local Living Wages as part of Principle 4: Fair Payment. Read it here.

Planned activities for year 3 (Sep-2019 to Aug-2020)

Finally, here are some of the highlights to look forward to in the final year of the TFLF project. We are very excited to be working on these and hope to collaborate with all of you as much as possible on these activities:

• COP25 Policy Statement – a new collaborative, joint statement by the Fair Trade movement to keep world leaders’ feet to the fire in fighting Climate Change by reminding them that there are already viable alternative business models that better protect both people and planet! Planned for end-November.
• Research: Coherent EU Policies Supporting Fair and Sustainable Textile Supply Chains is commissioned by WFTO-Europe together with Oxfam Magasins du Monde and the FTAO. The consultant organisation, European Centre for Development Policy Management, will publish an outline of policy options for EU policy-makers (mid-November), followed by a Shadow Strategy by the commissioning organisations and other CSOs with recommendations for such policies that would be fair and sustainable for all (around January 2020).
• International Women’s Day 2020 to deepen the message and findings from WFTO Global’s reports from this year. Join us in spreading the word on 8^th March 2020!
• World Fair Trade Day 2020 promoting the vision of “Planet Fair Trade” where Fair Trade enterprises show the way in doing good business – viable and successful business models that put people and planet before profit. Join us on 9^th May 2020!
• WFTO-Europe Review 2020 following the format of the Review 2019 – planned for publishing on World Fair Trade Day. Please share with us your inspiring Fair Trade practices, stories, experiences, etc. so we can promote you among other members in this edition (contact Mikkel Norgard at projects@wfto-europe.org).
• WFTO-Europe Biennial Conference 2020 will be held in Greece this year from the 3rd to the 5th of June 2020. Stay tuned and join us for true symposiums on the key topics with which we are moving forward as a movement in these years.

Fair Trade Marathon and Breakfast at the European Parliament

Advocacy and Campaigning Tools

Fair Trade Advocacy Office launched earlier this year an Advocacy Guide and Good Practices document developed with FI and WFTO members. These resources are available in English, Spanish and French under this FTAO shared google folder . FTAO is looking for more good practices from the WFTO community: you can fill their Google document and share some more good practices.

Moreover FTAO recently launched the EU Unfair Trading Practices Directive transposition guide during a webinar to discuss how to effectively tackle UTPs across Europe. For those interested in working on Unfair Trading Practices in food supply chains here are a few resources and actions

• The updated FTAO website page on Unfair Trading Practices contains a summary of the issue and some useful links, including to the transposition guide
• The recording of the webinar, in which Tom Wills and Silvia Schmidt introduced the guide, can be found here: https://vimeo.com/358059859
• If you are interested in continuing to work on the transposition of the Directive in one or more EU countries please input your details into https://forms.gle/b6uwoqte6jPFhfXcA

Fall of Conferences

Autumn is the season of falling leaves and in Brussels it is also the season of conferences. WFTO Europe participated to the European Research and Innovation Days organized by the European Commission, DG Research and Innovation between the 24th and the 26th of September.

The event gathered policymakers, researchers, stakeholders and civil society organizations from all over the world to discuss topics, which range from space engineering to microbiology, from food security to clean energy, from circular economy to health and medicine and so on. The objective of the conference was to identify priorities for the new research and innovation programme to succeed Horizon 2020. The new ambitious programme of the Commission, called Horizon Europe, will provide €100 billion of public investment in R&I and it will be officially launched the 1st of January 2021.

In his opening speech the Research and innovation commissioner, Carlo Moedas addressed the increasing importance of R&I that he witnessed over his five years of office. Moreover, he stressed the importance of communicating scientific discoveries to the public in order to convey the message that science is for all. Finally, aside of the main policy conference the Commission organized also an exhibition called Science is Wonderful, open to the public and above all to younger generations of students. Furthermore, at the beginning of October the European Economic and Social Committee organized a high level panel debate to discuss its reflection paper “Towards a Sustainable Europe by 2030”, adopted the 25th of September. The conference focused on the transition towards a greener economy with its opportunities but also its costs. The president of the EESC endorsed the political agenda of the European Commission President-Elect Ursula Von Der Leyen, who spoke of a Green New Deal among her priorities. Nevertheless, he highlighted the necessity to cooperate with civil society, to include social equity in an EU Green and Social Deal. In the following sessions, stakeholders from industry, finance, civil society, youth associations, member states governments, trade unions, consumers associations joined the conversation on the much needed transition towards a more sustainable society and economy, with the goal to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Civil Society Calls for Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Legislation

On the 3rd of October WFTO-Europe, alongside a coalition of more than 80 other NGOs and trade unions, signed a call asking for effective EU legislation that establishes a mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence within the EU. Nowadays still too many conducting business, companies and financial institutions in the EU perpetrate serious abuses and violations of human rights, exploiting their workers, forcing them to live in inhuman conditions, evading taxes and lacking attention to the environment. Current EU policy and legislation fails to adequately address this challenge. It is therefore time to take action and enforce the respect of Human Rights along the global value chains!

You can read more about the call and its signers and download the full statement here.

FTAO Press Release: The link between the EU Competition Law and sustainability rises in the EU agenda

Yesterday, 24th October 2019, a conference on ‘Sustainability and Competition Policy: Bridging Two Worlds to Enable a Fairer Economy’ brought high-level speakers together, including EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the Committee of the Regions (CoR), the Global Competition Law Centre (GCLC) of the College of Europe, University College London (UCL), and the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) co-organised the full-day conference ‘Sustainability and Competition Policy: Bridging Two Worlds to Enable a Fairer Economy’ yesterday in Brussels. The event brought together high-level speakers of various fields, including EU officials, Civil Society Organisations, academics, lawyers, industry experts and competition authorities.

On her keynote speech, Commissioner Margrethe Vestager outlined the main discussion, highlighting that “Tackling climate change is an important part of living more sustainably. But it’s only one part of building a more sustainable way of life. And this conference reminds us that businesses have a vital role in helping to create markets that are sustainable in many different ways, and competition policy should support them in doing that.”

The debate revolved around the key question of whether EU competition policy can give weight to sustainability values, and avoid being seen as a barrier to private sector and civil society initiatives intended to deliver sustainability objectives. In this regard, Dario Soto, CEO of Fairtrade International, stressed that “what is right for the consumer is compatible with what is right for the farmers” and that “we should avoid falling into the false dichotomy between a well functioning market and social and environmental sustainability”.

After the opening speeches, there were several panel debates covering current controversies around the consumer welfare standard, the obstacles that industry faces when designing sustainability projects, and insights by several competition agencies. The debate also covered the need for an antitrust exemption for sustainability, or other means of accommodating such goals within the antitrust framework of analysis.

For more information contact Jorge Conesa, Project Coordinator at the FTAO, at conesa@fairtrade-advocacy.org.

FTAO reports on EU competition policy and sustainability:

• “Who´s got the power: tacking imbalances of power in agricultural supply chains” (LE BASIC for the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, the French Fair Trade Platform (PFCE), Traidcraft and Fairtrade Germany, November 2014, Brussels)
• “Competition Law and Sustainability in the Netherlands: sustainability exemptions to competition law in the Netherlands as role model for Europe?” (Irina Toma for the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, June 2016, Brussels)
• “EU Competition Law and Sustainability in Food Systems: Addressing the Broken Links” (Claudio Tomaso and  Tomaso Ferrando for the Fair Trade Advocacy Office, February 2019, Brussels).

More information under https://fairtrade-advocacy.org/our-work/eu-policies/competition-law/

A full version of the agenda and a list of speakers at the conference is available at https://cor.europa.eu/en/events/Documents/ECON/CompetitionPolicy/Sustainability-and-Competition-Policy-Program.pdf

WFTO around the World

15th International Fair Trade Summit in Lima, Peru – Action on the Climate Crisis now enshrined in the Principles

More than 300 people from 42 countries gathered in Lima, Peru from 16th to 19th of September for the 15th International Fair Trade Summit for discussing, sharing experience, and exchanging best practices in their efforts towards a common vision for an alternative global economy, where people and planet have higher priority than growth and profits. The overarching theme was “Innovations for a Fair Future” and during the summit workshops and debates were structured around four thematic tracks: Accessing Markets; Deepening Fair Trade; New Big Ideas; and Food & Farming. Within these four strands, participants could do workshops and discussions on product design and engagement with consumers via social media; Living Wage and the Fair Payment Process, as well as the Guarantee System; the relevance of impact investment for Fair Trade; and the future of coffee along with securing sustainable incomes for farmers/producers.

A particularly lively session was the debate on the question: “Does Fair Trade need a commercial transformation?” While most agree that the market share of Fair Trade needs to grow, some also exhibited reluctance towards engaging too heavily in commercial transformation out of concerns that it would mean giving in to the type of unrestrained market forces which our movement believes have brought about the obsession with profits at the expense of people and planet. Martin Moritz from El Puente here offered sobering words: It is important for a successful Fair Trade business to be present, dynamic and relevant to its customers, which means collaborating closely with producers, workers and artisans on product design to meet the common demands of consumers. However, with strict and professional adherence to the Guarantee System and the Internal Monitoring System of one’s organization it is possible to make Fair Trade a facilitator of success rather than an obstacle to being competitive. Jeremy Piercy also gave the refreshing reminder that consumers today highly demand climate-friendly products and that they want diversity at the same time. He pointed out that they constantly see elephants as the favoured animal symbol on Fair Trade products, and consumers want more than that. In this sense, the discussion on commercial transformation was also linked with one of the key themes going through the workshops and discussions of the summit: Climate change.

Indeed, during the Annual General Meeting of WFTO Global on the 19th of September the membership voted to update one of the ten Fair Trade principles and rename it “Climate Crisis and Protecting our Planet.” This principle will significantly increase efforts of the membership to promote sustainable production patterns by, in particular, reducing CO2 emissions, waste and the use of plastics. Read the official press release here.

As the newly elected president of the WFTO Board, Roopa Mehta, stated afterwards, the global Fair Trade movement has long been showing significant efforts to address the climate crisis, through organic agriculture, upcycling and recycling, use of natural fibres, among other things. These efforts are now being stepped up to handle the escalating crisis and mitigate the negative impacts it is having on the poor and marginalised communities that the Fair Trade movement represents. As such, the 15th International Fair Trade Summit in Lima this year, was a loud, public statement of this fact.

The WFTO Guarantee System

Update on WFTO-Europe current membership numbers

News from the Region

Meeting with Malongo

The 5th of September we received the visit in our office of Jean-Christophe Galland, the responsible for relations with producers’ countries at Malongo, one of our guaranteed members and leading actor for Fair Trade coffees and bio-coffees. It is always a pleasure to meet directly our members and a great chance to get to know them better, exchanging ideas and reinforcing our network’s bonds.

You can read more and get to know Malongo in the session “Member in the Spotlight” of this Newsletter.

News from the Board

Please log in here to access all minutes from the Board Meetings held by WFTO-Europe.