About Fair Trade
Fair trade is a rapidly growing movement dedicated to paying workers fair wages rather than minimum ones. Fair trade got its start in Europe and first appeared in the United States in the mid to late 1990s focused on paying fair wages to coffee growers in developing countries. By 2004 fair trade coffee accounted for 2% of total coffee sales in the US and was growing at an average annual rate of 75% (source: Specialty Coffee Association of America). Starbucks, McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts and Procter and Gamble have each announced launches of fair trade coffee – testament to fair trade coffee’s emerging mainstream consumer appeal. Currently, fair trade apparel largely consists of small shops selling indigenous clothing but is beginning to expand beyond this niche market. In recent years several fair trade apparel companies have launched in the United Kingdom (notably People Tree and Gossypium) although fair trade apparel in the United States has lagged the European market. With the exception of Fair Indigo, teen retailer American Apparel is the only major brand selling “sweatshop–free” clothing in the United States. Unfortunately, because fair trade clothing is 1) still in its infancy and 2) more complicated to certify than agricultural products, there is currently no independent third party certification process for fair trade apparel. You can read TransFair USA’s statement concerning fair trade apparel certification at www.transfairusa.org, but the short version is that it will require years of work to develop an independent certification program for apparel. Until a certification is developed, Fair Indigo is committed to finding the best fair trade factories and ensuring that our high quality clothes are produced by workers who are paid and treated fairly. We feature these workers, their stories, and their factories in our catalog and at fairindigo.com. More about our factory stories. For those interested in learning more, visit the extensive Wikipedia entry on fair trade. You can also read the questions (and answers) we asked ourselves about fair trade as we started Fair Indigo. |