On Wednesday night I joined other movers and shakers in the Fair Trade movement to outline People Tree’s activities and our vision for a sustainable economic model, built on social and environmental justice.

From left Albert Tucker, Paul Myers, Ann MacCaig, Matthew Rock, Safia and Tim Smit at the British Libraries Kick-Starting the Sustainable Economy panel discussion.

Albert Tucker, former Chief Executive of Twin was his usual charismatic self. He told the story of how he had worked alongside cocoa farmers to bring their product to the British market in the early days, and how, 15 years ago, few believed that a market of more than 2% could be achieved how wrong they were! Albert’s focus was to show how Fair Trade organisations like Twin, Cafedirect and People Tree are unique in working to help producers build capacity so that they can develop domestic markets and create local businesses, using Fair Trade as a launch pad for this.
Ann MacCaig CEO of Cafedirect explained the roots of Cafedirect’s work and how coffee farmers had sponsored the first three containers of coffee beans when the market price of coffee plummeted. These desperate measures, backed by public support at the back of churches and small groups, have led to building the vibrant fair trade coffee market that we have today.
Tim from the Eden Project gave an inspired and fun presentation on how we shouldn’t be calling ourselves ethical businesses, we should be calling conventional businesses unethical, whether it’s auditing or financial institutions or trading companies which do not use kitchen table common sense in addressing social and environmental costs and performance just financial profit. Indeed they don’t even begin to acknowledge the risks of not incorporating the true social and environmental costs of their activities. Tim also amusingly gave us some tips and hints advising strongly to “kill negative people around you” (of course he didn’t mean it literally) as they just slow down the positivity of a team in delivering positive change in an already difficult environment.

What did I talk about? I talked about how People Tree’s work is delivering social benefit in rural areas amongst disadvantaged cotton farmers and artisans and how there are environmental benefits too. I also talked about the baby steps of where People Tree came from. The British library have posted the speeches here so if you have a moment log in and take a look.