Transparency Standards III In Fair Trade Jewelry
This is an ongoing documentation of a series of dialogs between members of our Manufacturing Group, charged with the task of developing exceptional standards for jewelry manufacturing. Follow this link, https://fairjewelry.org/madison-dialogue-manufacturing-committee for full review of past discussions, including two posts on transparency:
https://fairjewelry.org/archives/3976 and https://fairjewelry.org/archives/3974 The entire principles and standards document can be in our Manufacturing Standards section located on the top bar of this site.
Here, we continue to discuss transparency, and whether it should be in our document or deleted. This is the third post on this issue.
~Marc Choyt, Publisher
Patrick Schein wrote:
Marc, I believe to be able to get the conventional jewellers on board we need to drop standard #8. Possibly the term – transparency – is too broad. Conventional companies, I have found, believe this to be openness of books and financial statements.
I believe to truly help artisans in the South, we must have conventional companies on board to make an impact in the lives of workers and their families and communities. Their products must be made available to a vast amount of people.
We have to set standards that all parties can live with, otherwise fair trade/made jewellery – in my opinion – can not be successful. Prices have to be fair, but does how far do we go with transparency? I believe it is only the jewellers business what his/her margin is. Not ours or the artisans. The artisan needs to be paid a fair price and the buyer determines the price he or she believes it should sell for in their stores.
I hope I am making sense. There should be openness, but I believe it should be limited to what the artisan is being paid for his or her labour.
Marc Choyt wrote:
WFTO has transparency as one of their five categories. It reads:
“To openly share financial information, management policies, business practices, product sources, production, marketing and development programme plans on a regular basis. This enables both members and the public to assess WFTO’s, and each organisation’s social and financial effectiveness. This openness is tempered with respect to sensitive commercial or political information.”
It does sound great, but what does it mean to openly share financial information? What financial information are we going to ask for? How is social and financial effectiveness going to be assessed or tempered with sensitive commercial information? Who makes the decisions regarding how these issues are addressed? To me, there is a massive amount of subjectivity that we would like to avoid.
I remain convinced that transparency is and must be implicit in our actual standards rather than a standard in itself. At this point, I believe that most of us are in favor of dropping the 8th principle.
However, I would propose that this standard mentioned by Vivien is placed as a minimum requirement in Human and Worker Rights. It reads:
“Companies will be transparent in regard to finances and delivery to their workers and trading partners.”
To me, these conversations have been very helpful. Yet unless there are further comments, let us move on to the next principle.
Martin Rizzi Wrote:
Current fair trade paradigm—better without fair trade. FLO has never had anything to do with fair trade jewelry. This movement is being led by jewelery people such as those in this group. Steve, I think we need to think about what is achievable. Is it possible to double the wage of the artisans (ie 4% instead of 2%)? As with ARM, relatively small percentage changes at the primary level make a big difference in real wages, without changing things much for the retail trade.
Patrick Schein Wrote:
I understand your position about getting the broadest conventional jewelers on board but to be frank, I do not share your conclusion about dropping the openness of the actors because it is creating an imbalance between the developing world (DW) and the industrial one where the consumers are today.
We are asking transparency to the small and medium jewelry manufacturing facilities in the developing world about their practices and conditions and little at the jeweler level in the US or Europe !
Knowing that the FairMade standards is not recognizing neither a premium nor a minimum price to the disadvantaged actors, it is not fair to ask more transparency to one part compared to the other knowing on top that the FairMade label will be a market facilitator for the Industrialized world jewelers allowing them to spend less marketing costs due to their “third party labelled” ethical positioning. The Label must be a X3 WIN one (manufacturer-jewelry brand-consumer) but a Fair one not a “win-WIN-win” or “win-WIN-WIN”.
To that end, as a minimum, we are asking transparency at the financial level between the trading partners but we should also ask for transparency between the brand and the consumer in order to avoid simply any “wriggle room” actor and tend to a fair repartition of the benefit of the label.
This is also in line with the fundamentals of our working group which were expressed by Marc when he stood up in the plenary session at the World Bank HQ 3 years ago and evoked for the first time the “Radical Transparency” as a strategy for the industry. As mentioned in the objectives of our group:
“The label will be rooted in transparency. Studies have shown that consumers wish to make their own assessment as to whether something is “fair,” “green” or “ethical,” themselves. Ultimately, the group hoped to develop a ‘fair made’ brand based on radical transparency.”
So we cannot drop it simply based on the argument to get conventional jewelers on board. Our objective is to make a difference on the ground rather than to get a majority on board. To that end there are other initiatives available. I believe we have to accept to be a minority before growing to a majority. This will give legitimacy and force to our movement.
As a compromise, and to convince the broadest number of brands, I propose to introduce a progressive standard on transparency to be refined if needed:
“Consumer facing brands using the FairMade label must, in the third (or second ?) year of label use, provide clear information to their clients on the impact their labeled products have on the manufacturing and on its distribution between the actors along the supply chain.”
As minimum standard we would then keep:
8.1: Companies will be transparent in regard to finances and delivery to their workers and trading partners.
This way I believe the Label will be stronger than dropping the standard and this compromise introducing a transition period will allow embarking the maximum numbers of brands on the ship at the departure port.
Martin Rizzi Wrote:
If this were Anna Karenina, you’d take Levin’s side, against that of his good wife, who
observed that principles, a noble effort, might be of little use to the success of farming.
Marc Choyt wrote:
Transparency is proving to be an issue that requires our ongoing discussion. Patrick’s comment needs to be considered, yet he is away this week. It would be best if he were around to respond. As for myself, I’m in one of the busiest times of year. My regular job of running a jewelry company is taking more time in the day than I have.
I would like to break for a few weeks, and pick up this conversation toward the end of this month or early in September. At that time, I will attempt to outline what our options are so that we can move forward.
Thank you for your understanding and ongoing consideration.
Greg Valerio Wrote:
I agree Marc, we all need time to digest the divergence. Transparency is a controversial subject as it runs counter to the spirit of the world, which is secrecy and non-disclosure.
Martin Rizzi Wrote:
We know the Transparency of the sea and that its clearness is far beyond that of rock-water.
~20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
Flavia Wrote:
Good morning Marc, everyone, I agree that transparency is an issue that needs to be looked at more closely. We have to look at who we want on board and the statement that we would like to make.
Everyone have a great August. Thanks Marc.
Martin Rizzi Wrote:
Fair Trade & the Depersonalization of Ethics – By Jérôme Ballet & Aurélie Carimentrand – JBE, 3 Aug.
“Fair Trade has changed considerably since its early days. In this article, we argue that these changes have led to a depersonalization of ethics, thus raising serious questions about the future of FT. In particular, the depersonalization of ethics which is seen to accompany the current changes has led to greater variety in the interpretations of FT. Hiding these divergences behind the labels is increasing the risk that the movement will lose its credibility.”
Patrick Schein Wrote:
Thanks Martin for the observation.
What do you then propose as a “system” that could be implemented and understood easily by the consumers and that brings really something to the producers or manufacturer in the South ?
We have a saying in French : “la critique est aisée mais l’art est difficile” which English equivalent could be: “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”
Marc Choyt wrote:
Such a fair system is really the only objective worth trying for. Given the passion and integrity of those involved in this process, and the fact that it is a voluntary effort so no money is involved, we will do it.
