Where now for fair trade?

Abstract

This paper critically examines the discourse surrounding fair trade mainstreaming, and discusses the potential avenues for the future of the social movement. The authors have a unique insight into the fair trade market having a combined experience of over 30 years in practice and 15 as fair trade scholars. The paper highlights a number of benefits of mainstreaming, not least the continued growth of the global fair trade market (tipped to top $7bn in 2012). However, the paper also highlights the negative consequences of mainstreaming on the long-term viability of fair trade as a credible ethical standard.

Tensions Between Firm Size and Sustainability Goals: Fair Trade Coffee in the United States

“…The positive impacts of large firms participating in sustainability efforts may include (a) an increasing proportion of industry activities that meet sustainability criteria [6,15], (b) an increased availability of products and services for consumers that meet these criteria [16], and/or (c) a greater level of resources devoted to raising consumer awareness of sustainability goals [17]. There are also potential negative impacts, including tendencies for large firms that do participate in sustainability efforts to (a) only apply those practices to a very small percentage of their purchases or sales, while reaping benefits of positive publicity, (e.g., -greenwashing‖ or -fairwashing‖) [15,[18][19][20] and/or (b) attempt to weaken the original sustainability goals on an industry-wide basis in order to increase profits [9,21].…”

“…There are also potential negative impacts, including tendencies for large firms that do participate in sustainability efforts to (a) only apply those practices to a very small percentage of their purchases or sales, while reaping benefits of positive publicity, (e.g., -greenwashing‖ or -fairwashing‖) [15,[18][19][20] and/or (b) attempt to weaken the original sustainability goals on an industry-wide basis in order to increase profits [9,21].…”

“Fairtradization”: a performative perspective on fair trade markets and the role of retail settings in their enactment

“…Joining with scholarly criticism on supermarket cooptation of fair trade's message (e.g. Doherty et al 2013;Jaffee 2012;Low and Davenport 2005;Reed 2009), a respondent indicated that:…”

“…There is a widespread academic consensus that this situation represents the "mainstreaming" of fair trade. In contrast to the 1960s and the 1970s, when the fair trade movement was limited to the operations of alternative trade organizations (ATOs), in the last two decades there has been a proliferation of fair trade products in "conventional" market settings (Doherty et al 2013;Goodman 2010;Lekakis 2012Lekakis , 2013Low and Davenport 2005; 2006; Nicholls and Opal 2005;Moore 2004;Raynolds 2009;Taylor 2005).…”

Grounded Theory as a Macromarketing Methodology

“…Detailed analysis of its growth and the factors behind it have been provided by a number of scholars (see, e.g. Doherty, Davies, and Tranchell 2013;Moore, Gibbon, and Slack 2006;Nicholls and Opal 2005). Such contributions cover a wide range of micromarketing and macromarketing issues from the influence of producer branding and packaging strategies (Davies, Doherty, and Knox 2009), through to support for Fairtrade from the Vatican (Doran and Natale 2011).…”