ABSTRACT
Fair trade is a broad social movement that uses the market to push for ethical and sustainable purchasing, historically from developing countries. Fair-trade certification, as a category of social labeling and subset of the broader movement, is a proven model of economic development and empowerment. More than one million small-scale farmers and farm workers have earned $77 million in community development premiums from fair-trade sales in the United States since 1998, mainly from food products. 1 In 2005, fair-trade certification was introduced in Europe for cotton, one of the first nonfood products. This prompted a debate about the feasibility of the extension of the fair-trade model to address the problem of the sweatshop in apparel. Can the Fair Trade Certified™ label applied in the apparel and fashion industry provide a mechanism to translate consumer demand for ethical working conditions into real dollars for garment workers and cotton farmers? In 2005, Bama Athreya and Ian Robinson wrote that ‘the potential for selling fair-trade apparel to conscientious consumers [in the US] remains almost entirely unrealized.’ Seven years later, that is still true, but not for lack of consumer demand. In a 2008 Globescan study of 1,000 U.S. consumers, when asked ‘what product would you like to see Fair Trade Certified™?’ the most common response (49 percent) was textiles, rated above toys, gold, and forest products. 2 Another study released by Harvard/ MIT in 2012 found a 14 percent sales lift on clothing labeled ‘socially conscious’ at Banana Republic outlet stores (Hainmueller and Hiscox 2012). Fair Trade USA, the third-party certifier of Fair Trade Certified™ products in the United States, has developed a fair-trade standard for the cut-make-trim (CMT) facility (whether industrial factory or small sewing cooperative) to pilot test with U.S. companies. These companies are mainstream brands and mission-driven companies, sourcing cotton apparel, bed, and bath products from countries such as India, Liberia, Peru and Costa Rica to sell in diverse U.S. retail channels.
