New study confirms Fairtrade roses from Kenya have smaller environmental footprint

Fairtrade roses from Kenya have a smaller environmental footprint when compared to roses produced in Holland, even when factoring in transport to Europe, according to a recently released report. The report, titled Life Cycle Assessment Cut Roses, found that Fairtrade cut roses from Kenya – whether transported to Switzerland by air or sea – have a lower impact across all the environmental areas analysed, including cumulative energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and freshwater eutrophication, a pollution process where lakes or streams become over-rich in plant nutrients. For the Dutch roses,…

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New Fairtrade initiative will help UK grocery retailers collaborate on sustainability in supply chains

A new sustainability initiative created by the Fairtrade Foundation has become the first of its kind in the UK to go through the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA’s) new open-door policy for green agreements between businesses. Published recently, the CMA’s inaugural informal guidance looks at Fairtrade Foundation’s new Shared Impact model, which aims to drive collaboration within the UK grocery sector by bringing retailers together to pool their new Fairtrade sourcing commitments to a targeted group of farming cooperatives. Given that Shared Impact is designed to boost sustainability through sector…

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Fairtrade calls for “fair due diligence” in new report on its actions on human rights and environmental sustainability

Fairtrade International’s first human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) report, published recently, features aggregated audit data on issues such as labour rights, child protection, and biodiversity. As the first of its kind for a sustainability certification, the report also describes Fairtrade’s HREDD process, drawing attention to poverty and inequality as underlying causes of persistent human rights and environmental harms and the need for collective action. Released to coincide with Human Rights Day on 10 December and the 75th anniversary of the International Declaration of Human Rights, the report comes…

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Fairtrade producers set to expand deforestation monitoring through new partnership with Satelligence

Fairtrade International recently announced a new partnership with Satelligence to scale up satellite monitoring of forested areas and farms to all certified cocoa and coffee producer organisations globally. The initiative aims to connect Fairtrade cooperatives with data on their members’ farms and their deforestation risks, so the cooperatives can share these data with their commercial partners and better manage forest landscapes. The Fairtrade-Satelligence partnership and expansion plan will also support producer organisations – representing more than one million coffee and cocoa farmers cultivating 2.5 million hectares – to meet the…

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Driving sustainable impact through business innovation: winners of the 2023 Fairtrade Global Awards announced.

Fairtrade is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2023 Fairtrade Global Awards, recognising the outstanding and innovative contributions from businesses to create a fair and just global trade system across the world. Hosted by Fairtrade Africa, the Fairtrade Global Awards feature a diverse range of eight categories celebrating excellence in ethical and sustainable trade practices, from climate action to living wages and income. The judging panel for the 2023 Fairtrade Global Awards was drawn from a group of experts and leaders deeply committed to ethical trade practices and sustainability,…

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