Sustainable Living Festival & Fair Trade
Last weekend Federation Square (Melbourne) was the host to the annual Sustainable Living Festival where all things 'sustainable' are discussed, displayed and digested!
I only managed to catch an afternoon of the festival but did get to listen to Tim Costello (World Vision), Ian Dawes (World Vision) and Cameron Neil (Fair Trade Assn of Australia and New Zealand) - the theme for their discussion was 'Don't Trade Lives'.
The message that all three speakers wanted to get across to the audience was that as consumers we have choices in what we buy, and the choice should be for fair trade and ethical products (where possible) - we should be buying products that done harm or exploit people.
Tim Costello talked statistics - and they're shocking - it is estimated that there are over 27 million slaves working either as bonded workers or being exploited with low wages - and alarmingly over 85% of these workers are women and children.
Not only are these workers exploited monetarily they are also required to work long hours and often in dangerous conditions - there's no such thing as 'occupational health and safety' or unions when you're 10 years old working in a carpet factory in India.
And you don't even want me to start on the chocolate industry ....
Bottom line is ... we are all responsible for the consumer choices we make and its important to ask questions about products - where do they come from, who made them, what conditions were they working under etc. - if we all do our bit, it is possible to make a difference.
So ... when you're out shopping look for the fairtrade logo on tea, coffee, chocolate, rice, and sports balls and ask retailers questions about the origin of their products and if they're claiming they're fair trade ... ask why/how/who/what/where!
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