If TransFair USA made sure that TNCs made a more-than-greenwashing type of commitment to fair trade to get into the system, I think many activists would welcome the entry of TNCs. As it is now, activists are unhappy about TNCs getting into fair trade without doing much, and wonder if TNCs are effectively strongarming TFUSA to lower its bar for entry.

That is the impression I get from reading this blog, and I’m not even a TNC! Although I can only complement the quality of the debate on this blog, it seems to me that there is a lot of work to be done for Fair Trade advocates to accept TNCs into their movement, and look more objectively at what these companies do and don’t do that may or may not be considered “ethical trading”. (In other words, I’m saying we need to drop the assumption that just because a large corporation does ‘it’, that ‘it’ is automatically unethical.) If the goal really is to “mainstream” Fair Trade coffee, then it seems to me that there will have to be a change of attitude away from ‘anti-corporate cynicism’ and toward more open dialogue with people in these large corporations about what is realistic.

I’m not suggesting watering down the standards (although the limitations of Fair Trade standards does mean that not all coffee farmers are even eligible for FT certfication, which is a limit on the goal of making all coffee FT certified… but that’s a topic for another day…). Instead, I’m just saying that to engage with a corporation means that both sides have to drop their prejudices about each other and talk as one human being to another. In other words, corporations should stop seeing Fair Trade as an Marxist Hippie-movement, but at the same time, Fair Trade advocates should stop assuming corporations are Evil Capitalists bent on exploiting as many people as possible.

You can still look critically at corporate practices (and as advocates and activists, other people are depending on you to do this), but I think corporations need to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (in their intentions and their practices), not the other way around.

Yep, The “Bush Ad.” reference was a little harsh. SBUX as criminals, well, I’m not sure that that is not true. Although, we have no indictments at this point, right?

Sorry to use such inflamatory language, you are probably right that this is not really a help. It sheds light on the fact that I am WAYYYYY too invested in all of this and I need to get back to just doing what we do and step away from the keyboard.

Thanks for all of the comments and feedback. Take care…

-Matt

Provocative questions, indeed. Rather than bash TNCs and their commitment to fair trade, we should be thinking in a more positive direction. That doesn’t mean applauding them for what little they do. It means, foremost, recognizing that they aren’t going away and that they really can make a big difference given the enormous volume they sell relative to mission-based firms. There’s no simple answer to what percentage can be defined “commitment.” Until I see hard evidence that the fair trade logo is perceived by many consumers as company-wide rather than product-specific, I’ll reserve my cynicism and (naively) accept that Starbucks isn’t trying to greenwash. Nestle, though, inspires no such reservation.

I agree that there is a tradeoff here for the fair trade movement. If Starbucks sells a paltry amount of Estima blend, and fools consumers into spending more on other unjust blends, then the objectives of fair trade have been violated. Is there any hard evidence on this greenwashing effect?