A Fair Trade organisation in the US has cautiously welcomed amends to an ethical labelling scheme operated by another group.
Initially, Fair World Project (FWP), a campaign of the Organic Consumers Association, pledged to not recognise Fair Trade USA’s (FTUSA) accreditation scheme in a row over the amount of Fair Trade-certified ingredients used.
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It said that FTUSA’s criteria that products must contain 10% certified Fair Trade ingredients to carry the FTUSA “Fair Trade Certified (Ingredients)” mark and 25% to carry the “Fair Trade Certified” mark would “hoodwink consumers into believing they are supporting social change”.
Fair Trade USA has since amended the guidelines, which apply to all food and personal care products, so that only products that contain 100% Fair Trade certified ingredients may bear the full Fair Trade Certified label. The Fair Trade Certified Ingredients label will only apply to products containing at least 20% certified ingredients.
A spokesperson for FWP said they would reconsider recognising the scheme in light of the amends.
“FWP is pleased that FTUSA has incorporated feedback from various stakeholder groups on important issues, especially with respect to raising the whole product seal threshold to “100%,” the spokesperson said.
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By GlobalDataHowever, the organisation added that improvements could be made, such as specifying which ingredients in the product are Fair-Trade certified.
