Report On The Rapaport Fair Trade Meeting: JCK June 4th, 2007
What’s happening with the cutting edge of Fair Trade jewelry? I was on the panel of the meeting at the JCK Show in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Rapaport Group.
Last year, the meeting had a lot more people and press, but perhaps that was in part because of the trade’s concern over the Blood Diamond movie. About thirty people were in the audience. Many were just as qualified to be on the panel as I was.
There was no published agenda or objective for meeting at the JCK show. Eric Braunwart talked about a study which he conducted to determine the extent of the fair trade market for jewelry. The numbers are in, but not analyzed. Tom Cushman gave a slide show on artisan gold prospecting in Madagascar. Demos Takoulas gave an wonderful introduction into programs going on in South Africa that involve training poor people in townships and bringing them into jewelry manufacturing. It’s called Vukani-Ubuntu and is being supported by the Rapaport Group. (I will be writing about this in a future blog. I did an interview.)
But in the end, most of the meeting focused on certification issues around Fair Trade Certification, and Caren Holzman who spoke to us representing the certification process at TransFair.
TransFair certifies coffee, chocolate and other emerging fair trade products. Before the meeting, I had a quick discussion with Caren and realized that this organization was years from even considering manufacturing issues for jewelry. However, they are studying mining as a possible area of future certification.
What I also realized is that I have, like many people, been marketing our company as a fair trade based company outside of how fair trade is defined by TransFair. This is the tact that many people are taking. The Rapaport group owns fairtradejewelry.com. Eric Braunwart owns fairtradegems.com. No one is actually practicing fair trade, according to TransFair, because we are not third party certified.
Are we “Fair Washing” our product? Does TransFair own the fair trade concept? Certainly TransFair own the certification, but what is their relationship to the concept of fair trade in the open market? The way the concept is spreading presents both dangers and opportunities. Here’s the Wiki definition of Fair Trade: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade
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“The most widely recognized definition of fair trade was created by FINE, an informal Association of the four main fair trade networks (Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, International Fair Trade Association, Network of European Worldshops and European Fair Trade Association):[5]
Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South. Fair trade organizations (backed by consumers) are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.”
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Today, there are players producing “fair trade jewelry” out of small villages in the developing world. You can Google fair trade jewelry and read about them. Certainly their metals are not clean. They have not been included in this dialog at JCK. Ethnic jewelry is such a small part of the market, it is not even on the radar in the mainstream jewelry world, where all the business takes place. Even designer jewelry, a category that I am in, is less than 5% of the jewelry market. It is mostly about diamonds, high carat gold, colored stones (ruby, emerald, sapphires) and watches. What these smaller players are doing in villages is fantastic, but to make real impact on this industry, we have to deal with the mainstream.
Owned by TransFair, this mark certifies authentically “Fair Trade.” No jewelry in the world has this label.
Martin had a firm hand on the conversation that took place, and offered a potential solution to how to deal with this confusion around fair trade and certification: a “Rapaport Fair Trade” certification. To me, this was one of the most interesting outcomes of the meeting. It might be true that the Rapaport Group is at least somewhat interested in putting themselves in the center of the fair trade jewelry movement, just as they are in the center of the diamond business.
I was able to make two points. I asked Caren about how much of a chocolate bar needs to be fair trade for the bar to be classified as fair trade. That got into a discussion of how individual ingredients are listed as fair trade. I also realized that the producer in a fair trade production has to have some degree of ownership, but how much still remains largely ambiguous.
“With your textile certification, does the wool have to be organically grown?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
I work with a fair trade based manufacturer out of Bali. Our manufacturer there cannot get recycled silver. It is simply not available. There’s a good chance that some of the silver is not mined in a way we could be proud of. He also owns the factory, though he is very fairly distributing the wealth it generates. He, technically is not a fair trade manufacturer, according to TransFair; however, he is manufacturing under core fair trade principles. It is part of his core ethics.
I do not know how to translate TransFair’s approach into jewelry. But I do know there is a huge danger of perfectionism becoming the enemy of the good producer.
Do we have a transitional category, as we do in food production for items that are not completely organic? I understand TransFair’s concerns, but the cat is already out of the bag in terms of jewelry calling themselves “fair trade.” Even companies that are not doing third world production are using the term. We did talk about using other labels besides fair trade: such as socially responsible, green, etc.…
The second point I was able to make, which sparked a lot of conversation, was that we should not even talk about fair trade until we agree to what I call a “radical transparency” approach to all issues of social responsibility and fair trade.
I remain deeply grateful for all the work of the Rapaport group. They let me be on their broadcast for Rap-TV. They let me show my jewelry in their fair trade booth. Martin is an incredibly impressive, powerful writer and awesome speaker around these issues. Without him, this whole movement would not be where it is now.
Overall, the meeting left me with two questions that are important to consider. How do we feel about groups within the industry, leading these issues? There are several larger players in this, such as Hoover and Strong, Columbia Gems and The Rapaport Group. Any of these would certainly have integrity in the process.
But is it a good strategy for someone within the industry to hold control of the certification process?
Second, how do we deal with the ambiguity of the fair trade classification in the jewelry industry?
