Fair Trade Theme: ‘Fair Trade Connections’

Submission Deadline Thursday 23 February.

The Fair Trade movement aims to transform both production and consumption and contribute to wider systemic change that supports sustainable livelihoods, through its emphasis on producer empowerment, living wages, fair pricing and long-term partnerships, sustainability and social justice. However, the movement is not alone in attempts to reshape the discourse on sustainability and social justice through socially responsible business, social enterprise and supply chains. How does Fair Trade influence and support wider or alternative movements, organisations and activities? How can Fair Trade thinking and practice benefit from complementary movements and activities, both in the South and the North? How can we establish new connections and what are the opportunities to extend and reimagine existing connections?

We invite contributions from all academic disciplines, or across disciplines, and from campaigners and activists working on fair trade and related fields.

Proposals for papers, panel discussions and workshops are invited to explore the connections Fair Trade has established or could forge, particularly, but not exclusively around these subjects. We have posed some questions to stimulate your thinking and to reflect some of the challenges that have been raised by both academics and practitioners involved in the FTIS Steering Group. Proposals may engage with more than one of these subjects.

1. Education for Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development Goal 4 calls for “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, and includes a specific target regarding the “knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”.

• What role might Fair Trade play in promoting education for sustainable development and global citizenship?
• What are the connections between Fair Trade, sustainability and climate change awareness raising and campaigning?
• Fair Trade has a strong affinity to education at different levels, especially with younger children and through the Fair Trade Universities accreditation. But do current approaches to Fair Trade in educational settings reflect current trends in Fair Trade and related movements, e.g., decolonization and climate justice?

2. Localising the economy

New ideas are emerging within the Fair Trade movement about locally based fair trade. This has multiple forms including south-south trade, and north-north trade or domestic fair trade– all of which bring interesting practical and definitional challenges for the Fair Trade movement that has tended to operate on a south-north axis.

• How can ideas of local fair trade learn from city-led initiatives such as C40 Cities, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy and Place Based Climate Action Network, PCAN?
• How can Fair Trade, and initiatives such as the Fairtrade Towns movement, contribute to debates about sustainable communities?
• How might ideas of localising the economy and/or localising Fair Trade be framed in different national contexts?
• What strategies may support access of Fair Trade producers and organisations in into local or regional markets?

3. The environment and climate change

Fair trade has roots in interventions for economic and social justice but has increasingly engaged with the environmental impacts of production and consumption, including the need to consider the impacts of climate change. However, the links between Fair Trade and environmental ideas and issues could be strengthened.

• What can Fair Trade learn from new approaches to the environment and sustainability such as Doughnut Economics and systems thinking?
• How are Fair Trade producers and businesses impacted by climate change and how can they adapt? What strategic alliances can be built to support producers to adapt to climate change
• How does Fair Trade production affect biodiversity and forest cover and how can any negative impacts be mitigated?
• What is the carbon footprint of Fair Trade supply chains?
• What role do agro-ecology, conversation agriculture or lean/clean production play in improving the environmental impacts? How has Fair Trade embraced evolving understanding of natural capital and the role of the ecosystem?
• What strategic alliances can be made between the Fair Trade movement and campaigns for climate justice?

4. Decolonization and southern voices

The need for southern voices in the governance of Fair Trade has long been recognized and there is a commitment amongst fair traders to decolonize policy and practice and to enhance understanding of the colonial roots of trading systems, especially in agriculture.

• What does decolonization of Fair Trade mean beyond governance and education?
• How might thinking on decolonization challenge or change Fair Trade practices?
• How does decolonization connect to new thinking on new spaces for Fair Trade?
• What are southern perspectives on the future of Fair Trade?

5. The social economy and social enterprise

Fair Trade can be seen as part of the social economy, especially when practiced by 100% fair trade companies and social enterprises, indeed social enterprise is at the heart of the WFTO model.

• To what extent do new forms of certification and recognition of social enterprises such as B Corporations reinforce Fair Trade values or create a tension?
• Are there lessons from the variety of models of social enterprise for the Fair Trade movement with respect to business models and generating value for stakeholders?
• How are new generations of social enterprise interpreting ideas of fairness in trade at local, regional and international levels?

6. Business engagement with human rights and climate regulations

The Fair Trade movement also engages with conventional business, with much written on how this has opened up new markets and expanded Fair Trade ideas through certification. But also there is evidence that corporate use of Fair Trade systems can potentially dilute impacts, and that some companies are now shifting to their own standards and supply chain verifications rather than third party certification.

• What role can legislation play in limiting unfair trading practices?
• To what extent does Fairtrade certification contribute to fairness and sustainability in business practices?
• What are the implications for fair trade of the proposed EU Due Diligence legislation – both for fair trade enterprises and uptake of standards?

We are also open to including new subjects or questions that explore the broad theme of Fair Trade Connections and we would welcome your input.