Fair Trade and Environmental Certification

Fair Trade and environmental certification refers to various labeling programs designed to bring accountability to globalized production systems that otherwise obscure a product's sources and conditions of production. Amid food safety scares, environmental concerns, and ethical convictions, consumers and activist groups increasingly turn to certification systems to identify a product's social and environmental qualities.

All certification systems involve standards, inspections, and a logo indicating that the product meets the standard. In the most influential certification projects, third-party auditors conduct inspections and grant the right to use certification logos. Many certification systems have also developed a network of independent organizations that govern inspections, license logos, and develop standards. Such certification networks constitute important new components of global neoliberal environmental policy.

There are a wide variety of environmental certification systems, including, for example, International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001, Blue Angel, Energy Star, the European Union Eco-label, and the Marine Stewardship Council fisheries certification. http://Ecolabelling.org provides information [Page 1081]on nearly 300 eco-labels, including more than 70 food labels and 30-plus forest product labels.

Organic products have been third-party certified as produced, stored, processed, handled, and marketed in accordance with product-specific standards designed to maintain the health of soils, ecosystems, and people while avoiding inputs with adverse effects. From its roots as an alternative agricultural movement, organic farming has become increasingly codified and standardized, with recurring controversies about changing standards in ways that make it more convenient for large producers and retailers to offer organic products. In the United States, the sale of organic products increased from about $1 billion in 1990 to $17.7 billion in 2006. About 2.8% of food and beverage sales in the United States are organic. Global demand for organics reached $38.6 billion in 2006, double that in 2000. Forest certification is the process of evaluating forests or woodlands to determine if they are being managed according to an agreed set of standards. The most influential program is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a multistakeholder institution that combines environmentalists, social activists, and private-sector actors involved in forest management and wood product retailing. As of September 2007, FSC certification reached 90,870,769 ha (hectares) and 886 forest management operations in 76 countries, equivalent to about 10% of the world's managed forests. More than 200 million ha have been certified by competing industry- and governmentled certification systems, but most environmental groups prefer FSC and question the rigor and legitimacy of the other forest certification systems.

With the goal of improving socioeconomic conditions for poor producers of handicrafts and food, Fair Trade promotes just and direct trading as an alternative to conventional markets. Certified Fair Trade producers must be organized democratically and comply with product-specific standards such as minimum quality and the elimination of certain chemicals. Certified Fair Trade traders must pay a price to producers that covers the regional cost of production, provide a premium that funds local social development projects, and comply with minimum quality and environmental standards. Many Fair Trade producers are also certified organic, especially in coffee.

After many years of direct marketing by faith-based organizations and well-known nongovernmental organizations, certification created new possibilities of selling Fair Trade-labeled products not just in specialty stores but also in conventional retail outlets. Social activist organizations such as Global Exchange and the United Students for Fair Trade pressured big retailers and demanded that on-campus vendors offer Fair Trade coffee and other products. The sales of Fair Trade-certified products grew 40% per year during the past 5 years. By 2007, 632 Fair Trade-certified producer organizations in 58 countries participated in a €2.3 billion worldwide market, directly benefitting an estimated 1.5 million workers and 6 million family members.

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