Fair Trade Manufacturing Standards and Principle Group
Introduction:
Recently, I have been recently working on a document to move forward a process started two years ago at a Madison Dialog World Bank meeting that took place in Washington DC. I sought to spearhead an initiative to develop fair trade manufacturing principles and standards.
In preparation for the new round of discussions, here is an introduction to this work. The next post will be part the dialogue that took place this past March.
~Marc Choyt, Publisher
The initial impetus for a working group to establish principles and standards for fair trade manufacturing in the mainstream jewelry sector, came from a cross sector meeting on ethical jewelry issues, which took place at the World Bank in Washington DC, in October, 2007. This watershed event brought together representatives from the jewelry trade and civil society, many of whom had been working on their own initiatives around exemplary mine to market sourcing.
Though the focus of the meeting was on mining and diamond issues, it was acknowledged that jewelry manufacturing posed its own unique set of challenges. A few people volunteered to start a working group to develop fair trade certification principles and standards for small and medium size manufacturing in developing countries.
At the time of the DC meeting, fair trade jewelry or “ethical jewelry” made from a transparent and traceable supply chain, was still a relatively new concept within the mainstream jewelry sector. With few exceptions, jewelry sold as “fair trade” was sourced from small cottage industry producers in the developing world. The jewelry was targeting a low end niche, the fair trade market.
Yet most everyone recognized that adding the fair trade halo to luxury jewelry products would constitute a perfect “added value” to an item loaded with emotional and symbolic value. Also, many recognized the potential for positive economic develop for the fifteen to twenty million small scale artisan miners through fair trade and beneficiation projects.
Today, eco-friendly, fair trade jewelry as a concept is still in its infancy, even though several initiatives have developed, and mine to market sourcing has become a kind of holy grail. Apart from the internet, a few mainstream jewelry stores in the US and the UK are also selling fair trade jewelry. Many people across the sector are working in their own areas of expertise to fill in the supply chain gaps. Third party fair trade precious metal is very close to entering the market.
The market remains chaotic, with various claims being made about jewelry often with little transparency and no standards. But in this chaos is also opportunity. The market is ripe for fair trade jewelry. Given what we have seen in the last ten years in organics and natural products, it is only a matter of time before ethical jewelry catches hold. Fair trade manufacturing is the keystone in the process, and the need for principles and standards is greater than ever.
