headwayyouth- phil smith's blog

Ethical gossip

You may have seen a while back that Levi  are now selling organic jeans.  For those of us who are optimists this was another victory. Hurrah, another company going ethical...

Hold on a minute though. Becky, a fellow ethical enthusiast at TC, has just stumbled across this:

"We regret to announce that Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) has resigned     from ETI [Ethical Trading Initiative] following their suspension for refusing to adopt the ‘Living Wage ’ provision of the ETI Base Code."

Shock horror! Looks like it's back to Howies!

Excuse me...

Yes, I know this is 'my thing', but I figure me commenting about fairtrade during fairtrade fortnight is kinda like a Christian writing something reflective at Christmas or a Jew writing something religious during Hanukah, so get over it!
So my exciting trip to london included attending the glitzy launch of Fairtrade Fortnight. The event was full of licensees (ie Green and Blacks, Tesco, Ben & Jerry's) and so I felt a bit out of my depth as more of a campaigner, but the speeches were really interesting. Gail Porter, left, was beautifully simple in her description of how fair trade makes a difference, but the evening was largely dominated by Sainsbury's.
As a bit of a fair trade puritan snob this made me more than a little angry. 'We [Traidcraft] bust our ass to make fair trade what it is then Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer's waltz in a steal the limelight... grumble, grumble!'

I reflected on this a little on the way home and once I got off my high-horse I realised what a good thing this mainstreaming is. Sainsbury's are in the process of switching all their bananas to Fairtrade, their currently at 85% and will reach 100% by May. Sainsbury's sell 1,000 bananas a minute. That is a lot of farmers getting a much better deal than before a few consumers started to kick ass requesting fair trade.
There was a feature about all this in Monday's Guardian,

"Yesterday, Caribbean prime ministers who lobbied British government officials for better trade terms, lined up instead to thank Sainsbury's. Sir John Compton, the 82-year-old premier of St Lucia, told Justin King, the head of Sainsbury's: "You have saved the banana farmers of St Lucia."

Roosevelt Skerrit, 35, the youngest prime minister in the world when Dominica voted him in last year, said: "The commitment of the relationship [with Sainsbury's] is unparalleled."

He added: "As a result of fair trade, our farmers are now able to invest in their community in the form of school equipment, farm roads and community facilities."

So inconclusion. Hurrah! The mainstreaming of Fairtrade seems a chuffing good way to MakePovertyHistory.

Starbucks and World Domination

Great article in yesterday's Guardian about Starbucks and their phenomenal growth since inception in 1971;

"India, Russia, Brazil and Egypt are to be targeted this year. There are 530 branches in the UK and, with profits soaring, the company has said it aims to add 50 per year, about half of them in the south east of England. Anyone can now calculate their 'Starbucks density' using a locator on the company website: a person in Regent Street in London is within five miles of 166 branches."

At this point I should make a confession. I do visit Starbucks and I'm not the only person in the world of fair trade who does so. Truth be told, in terms of development I don't think they're as nasty as campaigns like 'I Hate Starbucks' would have you believe: they are the biggest buyers of fair trade coffee in north-America and the treatment of their producer groups is relatively  good. Where they have recently let themselves down is on the issue of licensing of Ethiopian Coffee.

I've mentioned this before but as Tony Blair is meeting an East-African coffee farmer today and many MPs are spending the afternoon watching Black Gold, I thought I might mention it again (more details available in this article in today's Guardian). If you want to get involved in the campaign, next time you go to Starbucks take a printed copy of this leaflet, ask for a Cafe Estima (Starbucks certified Fairtrade coffee) and with your money hand over your complaint.

My new year's resolution...

Yes, I know it's a bit late but I've got it; not to drive to work.
For too long I've spent over an hour each day stuck in traffic on the four mile journey over the Tyne to work and back, but no longer. For the past week it's been a swift walk to the Metro, which crosses the Tyne, before a bus journey to Traidcraft.
It works okay, costing a bit less and only taking a little longer than it does by car.
The main motivation is cutting my carbon emissions. Sitting in traffic by myself is probably the most unethical part of my life, so I'm trying to chop it out wherever possible.
One thing I've learned in this process is that winter is not the time to go carbon neutral...
By gosh it's cold out there!

M & S goes all ethical

M & S announced today it's A Plan to go green, pledging to spend £200M over the next five years implementing their 100 point plan. The plan means that by 2012 M & S will:

• become carbon neutral
• send no waste to landfill
• extend sustainable sourcing
• set new standards in ethical trading
• help customers and employees live a healthier lifestyle

(Oh and Stuart Rose Cheif Exec is going to trade his beamer in for a hydrogen powered motor)

I like their holistic approach, not just focusing on staff welfare or fair trade, but recognising that it's all or nothing. Don't know if it's a marketing ploy or a genuine commitment, but to be honest as long as they do what they promise I'm not that bothered!

(A little bit more over at Treehugger)

Another cabinet minister graces the Tyne

At the end of an eventful week, this afternoon I went to a gathering with Hilary Benn (Secretary of State for International Development). Benn is popular up here- not least because his dad is a bit of a socialist legend- and he did his popularity no harm in admitting (unlike other members of the cabinet) that there had been no progress on making trade work for the developing world.

Unfortunately, Benn gave little cause for optimism, dodging questions and not commiting to any progress on these issue. Baring in mind unfair trade costs the developing world twice as much as they receive in aid, that's a major disappointment (especially if you're a Ghanaian rice farmer)... I guess I would say that though wouldn't I?

Good news from Tony...

There is no pressure from number 10 to stop flying in order to save the environment!

In Mr Blair's opinion cutting air traffic (the fastest growing cause of greenhouse gases) to save the plannet is an 'unrealistic target'. Instead "we need to do is to look at how you make air travel more energy efficient, how you develop the new fuels that will allow us to burn less energy and emit less".

Genius Tony, Genius!

My afternoon with Gordon Brown & Bob Geldof

No honestly... well kind of...

This afternoon Bob Geldof, Gordon Brown, Benjamin Mkapa (former president of Tanzania), Susan George (political economist) and David Golding (Make Poverty History North East Co-ordinator and all round local legend) received honourary degrees from Newcastle Uni. It was a grand affair, but they let me in nevertheless.

The interaction between Geldof and Brown was quite interesting. They clearly get on very well. Gordon Brown made a speech (including three Bible references) and I have to say I was quite impressed.

After the presentation Brown left and the others along with Chris Patten formed a discussion panel. Some of the points in the discussion were really interesting, in particular:

• the importance of educating women in eradicating poverty
• the irrelevance of post-war institutions (UN, World Bank etc)
• the increasing influence that China (as a new superpower) is having over Africa
• there was also a discussion about whether or not aid should be linked to transparency and accountability. Geldof made the interesting point that in every country there is corruption (Watergate, cash for questions/peerages, Berlusconi) but that in poor countries this is more visible/controversial because it's a higher proportion of GDP.

As a final note there was an article in the Metro today highlighting that Britain has already emited more CO2 this year (per capita) than most developing countries will all year.

Reading week- P2

I try to balance my reading between light, religious and political and so following on from Stevie G's autobiography, A Short history of Tractors in Ukrainian and Spirituality Revolution I'm now reading Heat- How to Stop the Planet Burning, by George Monbiot.

Monbiot closes his introduction by writing,

'I have one purpose in writing this book: to persuade you that climate change is worth fighting. I hope I have been able to demonstrate that it is not... too late. I hope to prompt you to...force our government to reverse their policies.

Failing all that, I have one last hope: that I might make people so depressed about the state of the planet that they stay in bed all day, thereby reducing their consumption of fossil fuels.'

The subsequent chapter is terrifying and if you are not that bothered about climate change or worse naively contest its existence, you need to read this chapter. Although my work is committed to the development sector I'm increasingly thinking that global warming should be the primary concern of humanity. Monbiot argues convincingly that unless greenhouse gases are cut by 90% by 2030 the planet will begin to shutdown; glaciers will disappear, lands will flood, essential crops will not grow, ecosystems will fail and  disease will spread on an unprecedented scale.

The problem is that the negative effects of global warming are distant but the consequences of showing environmental concern are immediate (sacrificing those holidays, walking the extra mile etc) and people are simply not willing to make the sacrifice. For the first time in the history of humanity we (the west) have all the resources we need and do not need to search or fight for energy; why would we give all this up?

Anyway, the book is a really important read. Not only does Monbiot know his stuff, he also has a plan of action about where we should be headed and how we can realistically cut emissions by 90%, making this not just a good book, it's a manifesto!

All things Oxfam

Oxfam's campaign to get Starbuck's trading more fairly is hitting the street. In addition to faxing Starbucks CEO in the states, now they are asking supporters to print this postcard and hand it in over the counter.

Oxfam supporters out there may also want to make note of 118918, a new directory enquiries service which costs the caller no more but 9p goes to Oxfam!