Trying to follow

Corporate Responsibility Mondays continues with a look into the fruit industry, and my personal favorite, Bananas. For those new to the Corporate Responsibility Mondays, my goal is basically to highlight a company in the industry that is being corporately responsible. My co-blogger, Josh, will be highlighting a company with a poor and sketchy history. This week we will be talking about bananas. My hope is that each of these posts causes you to seriously consider your purchasing choices. I’ll be honest this will be the toughest one for me, because I love bananas, but if there is an option, I feel pretty compelled to take it.


Today will be a brief lesson in corporate identity stuck into the middle of our banana conversation. The logo above is one you might recognize if you’ve ever looked for ethical coffee or tea. The first thing we need to clear up is that the logo above is for a Trademarked corporation, it is not the exclusive label for fair trade items. This means it is not like the FDA approval system were all fair trade items must be certified by it. The logo above is for a company whose business is to visit it’s (paid) membership producers and make sure that they meet the criteria of their Fair Trade Certified logo. So, it’s a good organization and a good business, but it is not the exclusive fair trade certifying group. All of the other companies I’ve highlighted in these posts are Fair Trade, though I don’t believe any are members of this organization. It’s unfortunate that this company was able to Trademark the words “Fair Trade”, because without the lesson your learning now, you might feel limited to exclusively items with this logo.

Now that we have that clarification out of the way, let me acknowledge that Fair Trade Certified really does mean that you are getting a fairly traded product.

Fair Trade principles include:

* Fair prices: Democratically organized farmer groups receive a guaranteed minimum floor price and an additional premium for certified organic products. Farmer organizations are also eligible for pre-harvest credit.

* Fair labor conditions: Workers on Fair Trade farms enjoy freedom of association, safe working conditions, and living wages. Forced child labor is strictly prohibited.

* Direct trade: Importers purchase from Fair Trade producer groups as directly as possible, eliminating unnecessary middlemen and empowering farmers to strengthen their organizations and become competitive players in the global economy.

* Democratic and transparent organizations: Fair Trade farmers and farm workers decide democratically how to use their Fair Trade revenues.

* Community development: Fair Trade farmers and farm workers invest Fair Trade premiums in social and business development projects like scholarship programs, quality improvement trainings, and organic certification.

* Environmental sustainability: The Fair Trade certification system strictly prohibits the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), promotes integrated farm management systems that improve soil fertility, and limits the use of harmful agrochemicals in favor of environmentally sustainable farming methods that protect farmers’ health and preserve valuable ecosystems for future generations.

They are the big boys on the Fair Trade block, but they seem to have done an ethical job of it thus far. You can search pretty far and wide and there isn’t any critique that I could find about their standards. The only thing I would say is that being a big organization and having the brand identity so established, you need to keep an eye on them if they lower their standards or start pocketing too much of the profit. For now though, they are about the only way in the USA to get ethical bananas.

The website will tell you were you in your state you can purchase Fair Trade bananas, but one place they leave out is Wild Oats. It’s the only place in Nashville that I can purchase fair trade bananas and that might be true for a lot of folks reading this from around the country. The fair trade bananas in my neighborhood cost .99 cents a pound which is double what I’d pay at the big grocer in town. So, maybe bananas become more of an occasional treat then an every day occurrence. Usually you buy a small bunch at a time and so the price difference won’t be that significant. There aren’t many other options out there right now, but as you and I and all your friends start buying things more ethically, business will see the need to comply and soon the whole fruit section will be full of fair trade options.

Resoures:

• Wild Oats
• Oké Organic Fair Trade Bananas

• Where to buy your bananas.

• Co-op America: Fair Trade Bananas

Don’t forget to check out Josh’s post this week on a less ethical banana choice.

Corporate Responsibility Mondays enters the footwear industry. As always, Josh will be highlighting a company with a negative record, and I’ll be pointing you to some alternatives. Footwear is a topic I lamented over a few months ago searching out ethical options. In an industry whose pinnacle brand is also the poster child (or should I say, it’s child laborers) for the sweatshop industry, you’ll be happy to know you don’t have to walk around barefoot to be fair consumer. Because different people enjoy different types of shoes I’m going to try and hit the different styles by highlighting some great companies doing some ethical shoe sales.

For the Casual Shoe Wearer:
There is a great company doing a world of good as a shoe shop. The mission is simple: When you buy a pair of shoes, and a pair is given to a child on your behalf. TOMS Shoes is a neat company with a neat story and the goal is to provide you and children around the world with comfortable feet. The one thing I couldn’t find detailed information on is about were the shoes are made. It was mentioned that he found shoe manufacturers in Argentina were he is giving away the shoes, so you would assume they are made under ethical conditions. Just to be sure though, I’ve emailed the founder and asked about the details.

A new shoe option that’s just started up is a group called: BuyShoesSaveLives.com which sells shoes made by people in Iraq and the profits fund heart surgeries for Iraqi children dying from lack of health care. The shoes are called klashes and the website explains most of the details.

For the Classic Chuckies Wearer:
All those looking for a comeback of their old converse need look no further. Both No Sweat Apparel and Adbusters have their own fair trade version of these classic shoes. No Sweat Apparel has a wide range of choices when it comes to sneakers including the stylish ones pictured here. And No Sweat has a simple Union-Made mission to providing ethical footwear:

No Sweat defines the market for goods that support independent trade unions - the only historically proven solution to sweatshops. We market direct to consumers, relying primarily on internet sales for distribution.

They’ve got a great selection of choices of other products as well, I’m sure I’ll highlight them more at a later date.

Adbusters is a little more in-your-face when it comes to their product tactics with their Blackspot Shoes. Their primary goal is to be the non-consumerist, unbrand shoe: “This is your chance to unswoosh Nike’s tired old swoosh and give birth to a new kind of cool in the sneaker industry.” Their shoes are ethical as well:

* 100% organic hemp upper
* made in a union shop
* hand drawn logo & sweet spot
* designed by John Fluevog
* produced by Vegetarian Shoes

For the Athletic Shoe Wearer:
The options thin out a little when you start looking for a sports ready shoe. I’m not sure of soccer cleats or the like available from a union or fair trade store out there. One option for running shoes though is high quality, custom made, by a guy and his wife up in Maine. If you want a shoe with a story behind it and quality at that, Hersey Shoes is the ones you want. The price initially seems pretty steep, but Bart Hersey points out the truth:

A pair of Hersey Customs built just for you will last far longer than off-the-shelf shoes, even if you never resoled them. Also consider that your Herseys can be resoled at least several times before they finally croak, at a fraction of any new-shoe price. And when you finally do need a new pair, we still have your model.

I think it’s worth mentioning one big name shoe company for those who can’t order shoes online or elsewhere. New Balance, of all the major shoe companies, seems to have kept their ethical slate as clean and neat as possible. There has been some indication that their new factories in China, which are extremely difficult to monitor, have utilized sweatshop practices, but there has been only one account of that. So, if you must by a brand, make it New Balance. And when you do, be pro-active and write them and tell them why you purchased them over the others, and encourage them to clean up their act even more.

So, as you can see their are options when it comes to choosing your footwear. Hopefully you haven’t become so tied to brands and styles that you aren’t willing to branch out and find some footwear that supports your ethics and values. In case the links above weren’t enough, here’s a few more sites to check out:

• Vegan Line
• Vegetarian Shoes
• Green Shoes
• Freerangers
• Veja
• Ethical Wares
• Educating for Justice
• Sponsored Link: Mephisto Shoes

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Corporate Responsibility Mondays continue as we discuss your ever so addictive and greedy sweet tooth. As we’ve done before, Josh will be discussing a corporation whose history is nothing to be proud of, and I’ll be talking about a company that is worth supporting. Sort of like Good cop, Bad cop. So be sure to check out Josh’s post about a not so equal food company.

I was first introduced to Equal Exchange when our Food Not Bombs group received a donation of a couple boxes of their dark chocolate candy bars. The label told a wonderful story of ethical and fair consumerism. Like Maggie’s last week, they run as a co-op:

Our Mission

Equal Exchange’s mission is to build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relationships between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate, through our success, the contribution of worker co-operatives and Fair Trade to a more equitable, democratic and sustainable world.

Our Guiding Principles

* Trade directly with democratically organized small farmer cooperatives.
* Facilitate access to credit for producer organizations.
* Pay producers a guaranteed minimum price that provides a stable source of income as well as improved social services.
* Provide high quality food products.
* Support sustainable farming practices.
* Build a democratically-run cooperative workplace.
* Develop more environmentally-sound business practices.

All in all the goals and motives behind Equal Exchange are a beautiful example of ethical and responsible Corporate practice. The difficult part is making the decision that buying something is more then just getting the “best value” as in, the most goods for the least money.

Equal Exchange products are just that, an equal exchange. Too often we face products, side by side, aisle by aisle, in the grocery store with no knowledge or story behind how they got there. Our only concern usually is which one has the best price per ounce (they’ve made it so easy now). The unfortunate thing is there is a lot of unequal, unfair, and irresponsible ways that those chocolate bars, candies and other items end up the shelf.
Equal Exchange chocolate bars will run you about $3 a piece, a bit more then the ones in the checkout aisle. And unfortunately it’s way too easy to justify spending 50 cents on the chocolate and saying to yourself you’ll donate the difference later (if you’ve ever done that before, here’s your chance to make amends and make that donation now). The other option you have, is simply not to buy chocolate, your sweet tooth isn’t an essential part of your balanced diet.

Equal Exchange also has a neat video that talks about their coffee and fair trade process. Here’s a trailer:

Now that your throughly convinced Fair Trade is the way to go, step up to the plate and spread the word about Equal Exchange.

1. Convince a Local Business to Offer Equal Exchange Products
2. Host a House Party
3. Student’s can be involved too!
4. even churches.
5. Or you could just buy some chocolate or Coffee

Oh, and be sure to check out Josh’s post about a not so equal food company.

I’ve begun a collaboration with Josh Brown to raise some awareness on Corporate Responsibility. Josh started out last Monday by highlighting the perils of L.L. Bean and giving some reasons why you don’t want to make that your favorite clothing store. One critique from commenter’s was that Josh hadn’t provided an alternative of a “good” company. Enter Good Cop. Each Monday, Josh and I will post about companies in related fields, he’ll post the bad company, I’ll post the good one.

This week we are talking Tech. There aren’t a lot of outstanding companies out there currently, so I’ll be highlighting a handful of areas and different companies. Head over to iamjoshbrown.com for the other company.

This is not primarily to highlight Dell, but it’ll get some airtime at the end of the post. The truth is the technology industry has a lot of shadiness going on when it comes to ethical production. You thought sweatshops were just for clothing and coffee, sorry. Most of the big names have received some heat for some sort of ethical issue, but amidst all of it, there are a few small companies that are branching out in the niche of “eco-friendly.”

• GreenISP is a UK based (and available, sorry USA) Internet Service Provider doing things differently:
  

  We travel to our solar powered offices on public transport and we plant trees to offset Co2 emissions

• Community Mail is attempting to provide free email that supports the same values you do.
• Another area a lot of companies have carved out an eco-friendly niche is in the area of web hosting. A number of companies are choosing to power their servers and power stations by wind and solar power. TreeHugger provides a nice list.
• There is one company, NEC, who seems to be leading the way in making eco-friendly computers.
• It’s not a product you can buy, but I’ve got to mention the One Laptop Per Child project since we are talking about technology.
• And supposedly LG has a gas powered laptop of sorts.

But that’s enough about eco-friendly options in technology, and time to talk about what to do when it comes to buying computers and other gadgets. This is tough because a lot of companies have bad raps from HP, Toshiba, Sony and on. But from my research, the best way to go is Dell.
First, let me quickly explain how to choose companies in a bushel of bad apples. If you can, buy used. This goes from thrift stores to ebay, if it’s a corrupt industry, try and remain in the second tier. But, if you must buy new, then it’s best to buy from the company that you feel is ethically doing the best, even if it’s not great. Especially when your intentional about it (write a letter or tell a manager), you send the message that when you hear about bad business you won’t shop there, but you will support efforts to ethical business.

Dell is a good candidate to support for two reasons.

1. Dell has been one of the leaders in the computer industry at addressing the e-waste problem. Dell adopted the Computer TakeBack Campaign in the summer of 2004. They haven’t done the best job of using more disposable material for their computers, but they are ahead of many of the competitors.
2. Dell’s rap sheet is less long then it’s competitors. When compared to Sony, Toshiba, Apple, and Microsoft, Dell seems to be doing quite well.

Responsible Shopper gives this as their bottom line for Dell:

take action to support the work of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, the work of which contributed to Dell’s recycling commitments. Keep the pressure on Dell to fulfill its newly stated sustainability goals.

Sources: Responsible Shopper and Knowmore.org

Don’t forget to stop by Josh Brown’s website for the other half of Corporate Responsibility Monday’s look at Tech.

First a confession: I once owned a hat from Abercrombie and Fitch. They share my initials: AF, and with a simple sewing tool the “AbeRcrobIe And fitcH” Became “A R I A H” and I was happy. My friend Zach told me the other day that that hat was a defining characteristic of me in high school.
It was also during those high school years that I saw Abercrombie go from “cool” status in my mind to “Wow, they are pornographic and setting terrible standards for my generation!” And from there it’s gone only downhill.

This quote from a recent interview of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, says pretty much everything:

Listen, do we go too far sometimes? Absolutely. But we push the envelope, and we try to be funny, and we try to stay authentic and relevant to our target customer. I really don’t care what anyone other than our target customer thinks.

This is his response to the many protest that Abercrombie has faced for it’s sexist and racist t-shirts.

I don’t want to spend anymore time listing reasons Abercrombie is bad. Want I would like is to figure out some way to convince the millions of “good” people out there that spending your money at a place like Abercrombie gives your support to their Racist and Sexist behaviors.

via AngryAsianMan.com