Speak Up-KōrerotiaEthical Supply Chains

9 August 2017

Male This programme was first broadcast on Canterbury’s community access radio station Plains FM 96.9 and was made with the assistance of New Zealand on Air.

Female Coming up next conversations on human rights with “Speak Up” – “Kōrerotia”, here on Plains FM.

Sally E ngā mana,E ngā reo,E ngā hau e whāTēnā koutou katoaNau mai ki tēnei hōtaka: “Speak Up” – “Kōrerotia”.

Tune in as our guests “Speak Up”, sharing their unique and powerful experiences and opinions and may you also be inspired to “Speak Up” when the moment is right.

Kia ora and welcome to “Speak Up” – “Kōrerotia”, a specialist human rights radio show and podcast. I’m your host Sally Carlton, based here in Christchurch. Today we’re talking ethical supply chains. The show is going to be airing in time for Fairtrade Fortnight in New Zealand which is the 4–17 August and we’ll be hearing more about that. This timing works really well; not least because we’ve just done a show on human trafficking and I think human trafficking and ethical supply chains tie in really well together.

We’ve got three guests with us today: Natalie Baird from Trade Aid and the University of Canterbury (she’s wearing two hats), Jeff Ward, who is from Christchurch-based group Liminal Apparel, and David Capperauld very kindly joining us at 4am from the UK from Child Labour Free.

Now if you could all just introduce yourselves - tell us a little bit about what brought you to this and what your organisations do - that would be fantastic. Perhaps we’ll start with you, Jeff.

Jeff So I’m Jeff from Liminal. We’re part of a big organisation that wanted to look at more fair and ethical ways of trading so we have a few businesses based here in Christchurch: a café, a coffee roastery and then our part of the business which is Liminal. We’re a clothing distributor so we do wholesale basics and we provide those nationally in New Zealand and also in Australia. We produce and sell for an organisation based in India who offer employment to women and families who have been caught in human trafficking - so a fairly full-on, in-your-face sort of story in terms of that supply chain but a really cool story of hope and freedom that’s actually come out of it and some killer products as well.

Sally I notice on your email you’ve just launched ethical wrist bands?

Jeff Correct. So it’s good and bad timing: we’re currently Liminal, we’re actually going through a massive rebrand so we’re soon to become another brand and part of that is as we become more production-focused overseas in Kolkata, India. We’re actually merging to become another brand so we’ll become Common Good. Common Good are based in Kolkata, India. Currently we’ve been able to offer employment to 15 women, it’s an open canal that runs through the city and we have been able to just say hey, we want to look at good jobs, good choices for people and see some cool communities transformed and people’s lives changed.

So we’re producing a range of ethical wristbands - so they’re a laser-etched bamboo tab which can have someone’s cause or music festival or their event etched onto that and then a wristband tab so it’s something that can be used as a security feature or interchange with the plastic ones that you get when you go to a festival or conference.

Natalie What a great idea, that’s fabulous.

Jeff Something really simple but something that obviously has low skill needed to begin with but also can be a high volume turnover so we’re really excited and that’s actually now being launched globally. So we want that one to go big and just in the throes of being able to push out a really good brand for that which is something quite exciting too.

Sally I guess we’ll touch on this but it sounds like that’s a lot more environmentally sustainable than other types of wristbands - so I’m sure that will come into our discussion. Natalie?

Natalie Great. Hi everyone, my name is Natalie and I’m here with those two hats as Sally said. I’m on the Trust of Trade Aid Christchurch and Trade Aid is New Zealand based - and actually Christchurch based - it began in Christchurch. It is a social enterprise that promotes fair trade. We work with over 65 trading partners, organisations around the world - actually 27 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Palestine and the Pacific and those organisations in turn work with over 500,000 individuals. I’m on the local trust and we run a shop here in Christchurch from the Container Mall at the moment, we’re looking for permanent CBD premises at some time later this year.

I’m also employed in my day job at the University of Canterbury and University of Canterbury has just become a fair trade-certified campus.

Jeff Congratulations.

Natalie Thank you very much, we’re really excited about that and we’re launching officially during Fair Trade Fortnight.

Sally Fantastic and I’m sure we’ll hear more about that as well. How about you, David?

David Hi, I’m David; I’m the Director of Child Labour Free. The Child Labour Free aim is really to take action against slavery and supply chains with a specific emphasis on children and supply chains and then we do that consistently by challenging current practice and we feel as though we are really challenging the status quo in terms of what happens from an ethical sourcing or responsible sourcing perspective in supply chains and we work really closely with businesses to 1) sensitise businesses to what the challenges are and what the issues are and also help support and influence the business community to generate positive change in the supply chains. Our aim really is to deliver this through affordable, simple but highly effective tools and approaches within either the sourcing element or managing the supply chain element for businesses globally. We do that through a range of services which span from accreditation services to advisory services to educational and mentoring of businesses, everywhere in the world right now.

We’ve just started to talk to some businesses in South America and whatever that are having very similar challenges to anyone across the world in terms of what they do and how they do it. The connection is that we’ve worked with Child Labour Free for 18 months to 24 months - Child Labour Free being a New Zealand-based organisation - and four months ago we decided that it felt the right decision that we split that business between ourselves taking over the operational element and partners in New Zealand still retaining that foundation element of Child Labour Free. So we work closely with Nik [Webb-Shephard] and the team in New Zealand and we give a percentage of our revenue to that foundation consistently. So we have a very close working relationship which is why there’s as guy from Scotland talking to you rather than New Zealand so that’s trying to put that into some context.

We work globally, as I said, and we have people and partners in all major sourcing locations - Turkey, Bangladesh, India, China, Vietnam - you name it, we’ve got someone there that works there and works in a factory there. So that’s a very short introduction to what we do.

Sally Thank you very much. Well my first question to all of you is: we’re talking ethical supply chains - what exactly do we mean? I guess maybe for you particularly Natalie, what is the difference between fair trade and ethical supply chains, or are they in fact the same thing?

Natalie I guess there’s a difference between ethical businesses and fair trade businesses and for me I think that while a fair trade business must be ethical, an ethical business is not necessarily a fair trade business. I guess ethical businesses tend to focus quite a lot on supply chains and worker rights which fair trade organisations are also interested in but fair trade is broader than workers’ rights.

Trade Aid is a member of the World Fair Trade Organisation which means we subscribe to ten principles and they are a lot broader than just supply chain; so for example, there’s an environmental principle in there. But I think they share a lot of common goals which is great and I guess ethical trading is I think a newer approach to thinking about trading relationships, whereas fair trade has been around since about the 1980s as a movement.

Jeff It sort of feels like ethical business is the new CSR, it feels a bit buzz-wordy. But when I think of ethical versus fair trade: in essence, for us, it really feels very similar but at its purest form, the difference is often there’s a certification in behind fair trade so whether that be the WFTO, whether you’re FLO-certified or some other fair trade certification seems to be the way and whether you can use capital letters at the start of your “Fair” and your “Trade”.

Natalie Or whether they’re one word or two.

Jeff That’s correct as well.

Sally Good point to raise. We sort of touched on it around accreditation but what kind of guidelines are there in place in terms of if you’re an ethical company do you have to have any kind of accreditation or is that something that the company itself decides?

Jeff I think that’s a really interesting one and I guess for us as a business we’ve come from a starting point that that was what we wanted when the business was conceived so that was a kind of no-brainer but for a lot of these really big corporates and businesses working backwards it’s something you’ve either got to reintroduce or start some framework from there. But for us as a business we said, hey we only want to offer fair trade and organic products so that was something we’ve actually had to go in and meet a set of guidelines first and that’s not just for us as a distributor in New Zealand and Australia but also right the way through our supply chain so that’s where we go further into the practices that Natalie alluded to. So there’s a whole bunch of guidelines and audits externally and internally and that happen each year around that.

David I think from my perspective, in terms of a legal requirement to follow a programme there’s not really a legal necessity to do it but there are multiple programmes and initiatives and accreditations out there that certain environments of businesses are in and there’s also an overarching set now of UN Guiding Principles and values that set the scene for a lot of these accreditation and ethical programmes that are out there. So fair trade principles for instance, as we’ve just heard, there’s… They tend to be wider than the typical ethical sourcing programme. Fair trade will focus a lot of its efforts on setting pricing and things like that where a lot of ethical programmes don’t; it’s not really about the setting of a standard or a fair price, it’s more about the elimination of slavery and supply chains although some programmes do focus on more sustainable

costing price because that does have a knock-on effect to the elimination of slavery in the supply chain.

I suppose one of the challenges in the market place is, there are multiple complex programmes out there that are very difficult for businesses to say which one is the right one for them so they’re mainly driven by the international labour organisations which are a recognised code of labour practice globally and then there’s numerous ETI base codes and other principles that sit around that.

Then as we’ve just heard there are audit programmes that support these and a number of other initiatives that sit around those. There are challenges around there; like, are audit programmes really having the effect that they should do? So there’s lots of conversations around, how should this work? How do we standardise all of these initiatives that are out there? But the reality is that in the UK… If we looked at the UK for any company who has got a turnover of other £36 million per annum there’s a legal requirement to have a modern slavery statement each year and I think globally that is going to become the norm.

It’s going to get tighter and tighter and tighter so I think over the next few years there is going to be much more legislation around what company needs to do from a slaving perspective in the supply chains.

Natalie Can I just chip in there, Sally? I think this issue of legislation is quite interesting. So as David mentioned, the UK now has this Modern Slavery Act which requires regular reporting and it began actually this push for legislation in California back in 2010 but it’s only a reporting requirement which I think is quite interesting. So it requires companies of a certain size measured financially to report on what they’re doing to eradicate slavery and trafficking in the supply chain but I think - and David, you’d be able to correct me if I’m wrong - in the UK there’s no offence provision for either failing to report or for actually having slavery in your supply chain. So it’s simply a reporting requirement. And I think it’s good that governments are getting engaged even at that quite minimal level but for me, anyway, I think a really desirable next step is actually for governments to start thinking a bit beyond just reporting.

Sally Prosecution.

David I totally agree. I think the positive of it is that it’s becoming recognised as an issue, the challenge is that it is very open in terms of its legislation and as you say reporting can be anything from some of the really high end and there’s quite significant transparency in supply chains and there’s action being taken to address that right down to the point that people are saying, we are not doing anything and that actually counts as a report. So there’s a lot of work to be done to tighten that up. I suppose the initial impact is that 1) it gets the agenda set, and secondly it raises awareness - but there’s much, much more work to be done there because people can still actively ignore the issues.

Sally And correct me if I’m wrong but New Zealand doesn’t yet have such a law, does it?

Natalie No it doesn’t. Way back in 2009, actually, Trade Aid sponsored a petition that got about 17,000 signatures asking for a law whereby companies would be prosecuted if in their supply chain they had child labour and it was investigated by a select committee but in the end no law was adopted.

Sally OK. Well we’ll have our first break now and we’ve got ‘Sugar, Sugar’ by the Archies as our song.

MUSIC BY THE ARCHIES – SUGAR SUGARSally You’re listening to “Speak Up” – “Kōrerotia” on Plains FM 96.9. We’re

discussing ethical supply chains with Natalie Baird, Jeff Ward and David Capperauld and in this section we’re going to look particularly at what are the benefits of engaging with ethical supply chains. I open the floor to all of you guys; that’s a massive question, I’m sure.

Jeff Well I think first up, we’re not happy for people in our own country to be treated unfairly, for injustice to happen here, so why should that be allowed and be OK? I think recently there was a $2 billion package which was announced by the government for the Care and Aged Services for people who have been looking after the elderly who have just been horrifically underpaid and well and truly not looked after - so if we’re not happy for that to happen in our own backyard then why should that be allowed overseas?

I think engaging with a supply chain right the way through… Where actually we’re dealing with people. At the end of the day, they’re our brothers and sisters and these are faces at the end of our T-shirts that are making those clothing or pulling the sugar out of the sugarcane fields; these are people. So actually dealing with and working alongside ethical supply chains is something I just see as a no-brainer really.

Sally A moral….

David I totally agree with that and one of the challenges… We do a lot of work in terms of behaviour because quite a lot of the challenge around that area is behaviours of and the will of businesses to actually do the right thing and when the context around this stuff is that there are over $20 million slaves - and that’s an estimate; there may be a lot more than that - and supply chains globally and everything that we wear, that we touch, has a good chance of being touched by a slave at some point, everyone is affected by this and everyone including myself will buy something that has been touched by a slave and so everyone is guilty of supporting this process. And I think that is one thing that from an awareness point of view that everyone needs to understand.

I think ultimately where the focus is, the benefit of these people who are enslaved, the workers in the supply chain. And certainly the benefits of ethical supply chains for them are they can get a fair range in conditions, they work in an environment that’s safe and we reduce or eradicate any human rights violations and that needs to be the focus. But being human beings and being in business and working, everyone needs to have some kind of benefit whether it be just personal benefits to doing this kind of work; from a business perspective, there are very personal moral benefits for businesses to be involved and it matches the value and the commitment to those businesses.

Business images and reputation, that’s not the main reason I suggest people should be doing it but there are benefits in your reputation and your image because consumers are becoming more aware of this, they’re making more purchasing decisions based on the information that they get and certainly millennials are more aware of these issues in supply chains and they will spend more money on those types of products that they believe are ethically sourced and don’t violate human rights. So there are lots of benefits right across the board here and I think one of the biggest ones or if we talk about from a business perspective is by becoming more ethical and responsible what we find is that these businesses attract better people to come and work for them. People are making choices about the company that they work for now and the fact that people can now research online and figure out who is doing the right thing or at least trying to do the right thing has got a big effect on where they decide to spend their careers and who they want to go and work with so there is a big benefit from a business point of view in terms of doing right and attracting the right people and really driving the credibility and reputation of that business. But ultimately it is about the workers and making sure that people are not abused when making products that we consume every day.

Natalie I’d probably just add that for me fair trade is about helping people improve their lives. Going back to what you said, Jeff, at the beginning - there are people at the other end of these supply chains and I think we have an obligation in what we do to help them improve their lives and in particular to move beyond subsistence living so that they earn enough money to be able to send their children to school, for example, rather than have the children go out and work in sugarcane fields so that generationally… Between generations there’s a real improvement in people’s lives.

Sally And I guess that’s one of my questions as well is that you’re not just benefiting the worker in that particular factory on that particular farm but the benefits I imagine go much broader out into the communities that these people are living in.

Jeff That’s correct. One of our stories: one of our women who was originally trafficked through from West Bengal into Kolkata and for her she was sold into this job and business of human trafficking in Sonagachi which is

the sex trade so it’s a really horrible story she’s had to go through but actually being able to offer her a job where she has a decent living wage, she has choice in that, she’s got freedom in that and being able to see her kids not having to go through that same horrible situation so they’ve actually be able to go on and become educated, get a really good education, go onto university and one of the young guys has now come back and works in the logistics department. So it just shows that there is that actual generational change, we are seeing change within our lifetime and I guess the biggest thing is that we actually can be part of that as well in our own small way, that we can see change and that people actually are really just hungering for that as well.

David I was just going to reinforce what’s just been said there that there are a lot of remedial - if you want to call it that - remedial actions that take place where you find issues like this in your supply chain and you do something to remediate that and you need to be careful about the actions that you take and work very closely with either non-government organisations in those geographies who understand in detail the political and cultural environment around the area and work very closely to remediate those situations.

There have been some really good examples of that in terms of what happens but I think the ultimate thing is that it’s not only about those individual instances and the main goal of this is around prevention and actually working wider in the community when you find what the issues are and having business being able to influence that community and create prevention projects which we found is all the big and bold type of projects but actually quite a lot of them are very affordable and make a huge impact and return for the investment that’s made and the money that’s spent in there. And there’s a balance, I suppose, of that remediation and the prevention and protection of individuals that we need to focus on and do more of in ethical supply chains.

Sally Changing the topic slightly: we’ve been talking about the benefits for different groups, we’ve spoken about the people who are actually producing the products, their communities, the companies in the developed nations who are selling these products and then also the consumers.

I’m wondering if, from your different perspectives, if you see everybody’s thoughts on what is an ‘ethical supply chain’ aligning or are you noticing differences between, I would imagine primarily the people based in the developed countries and the people in the developing countries? I would imagine everyone has got the same idea that we want to further and better our lives, that’s great; but I’m wondering about, is it problematic, for example, somebody going into India: How do you choose of the hundreds and thousands - potentially millions - of people whose lives you could be enabling into these kinds of supply chains? Are there any difficulties or complexities around that? Probably a very big question.

Jeff It is. I think we’re not going to do it all, we have to be realistic but we can’t do nothing. So Freeset as an organisation was started in 2008 and a New Zealand couple found themselves over in Sonagachi in Kolkata and they were walking the streets and just thought wherever they ended up living they would be wanting to do something and they got talking with some of the local women there and they’d seen NGOs and development agencies coming in and promising the world and delivering on nothing so they were right from the outset really cynical and probably quite cautious to jump in and really commit to anything that was going to happen when some more foreigners came in - but I guess that was where it actually came from within, it was a locally-driven thing so it was a group of four or five women who initially wanted to be doing something locally and working alongside was the key one so that was a really massive thing for how we’ve always taken it as a business.

David And I suppose the point there is that there is no reason why we just can’t do nothing because to help one person is more than worthwhile and I think that businesses can do what’s directly in front of them and they can have an influence in what is directly in front of them.

For organisations like sales, fair trade and organisations like that, one of the positives around that is that we can scale customer base and the influence of the customers under one banner and there is a better opportunity to then have a bigger influence over a wider community - so you can influence, potentially, local governments, you can lobby government because a lot of the slavery that you find is driven by politics or governed by culture and you’re not going to solve all of that as a business but you are a key player in that and if you can get a group and scale a group and leverage a group of businesses to then try and influence government and make some legislation changes around things then you become more influential on a wider scale and I think that’s one of the bigger benefits of becoming part of a bigger programme.

If you’re not a Walmart of this world where you’ve got the ear of the politicians and you’re sourcing geography, if you’re a smaller company that’s how you can have more and more influence over a wider scale.

Natalie I was just reflecting on the similarity actually between Freeset - the way Freeset began - and the way Trade Aid began. So Trade Aid began in 1973 when Vi and Richard Cotterill were working in Northern India with Tibetan refugees and they looked around and thought… They worked there for a couple of years and were due to return to New Zealand, they thought what can we do to help these people? And they brought some carpets back to New Zealand to sell them and send the money back to these Tibetan refugees and the carpets sold out within 15 minutes and that’s where the idea for Trade Aid began.

Coming back to your question, Sally, I think for us anyway it’s very much about the relationship. So yes, we’re a drop in the bucket in the scheme

of things but what we’re interested in is the relationship between us as Trade Aid and then our partner organisations really and focusing on those relationships is really key for us.

Sally And I suppose they go on to strengthen over time, don’t they?

Natalie That’s right and I think that’s one thing probably with your organisation, Jeff, and us, is that we’re not just in it for the short term, we’re not trying to get a good deal on our chocolate or sugar or T-shirts this year; we’re actually involved for the long term, and through good times and bad. We’re not just going to walk away when we find someone that offers a better deal.

Jeff Agree.

Sally Actually that was one of the benefits I wondered if someone might bring up: if producers are involved in these sorts of supply chains, they’ve got almost a buffer against some of the market trends, the ups and downs?

Natalie Definitely and particularly in commodities markets so particularly for coffee, chocolate, sugar… Coffee in particular, that provides a real buffer for the drop in the world-wide price if you’re trading in a fair trade environment.

Sally Well it may be time for our next song and Natalie you’ve chosen for us ‘Everyone is a Winner’ and presume this is fairly self-explanatory but if you want to say why you chose it?

Natalie Well yes, everyone is a winner because ethical supply chains, fair trade, it’s just win win win all round but also because the song and lyrics are by Hot Chocolate and of course Trade Aid sells fair trade chocolate so there’s a double reason there.

MUSIC BY HOT CHOCOLATE – EVERYONE’S A WINNERSally This is “Speak Up” – “Kōrerotia” and we’re discussing ethical supply

chains. We’ve been talking about the benefits and they’re numerous - which obviously we all know - which is fantastic. We’ve also spoken a wee bit about the challenge - particularly the idea of how do you help just some individuals? - but we’ve sort of discussed the fact that hopefully by helping some you’re helping the communities and those relationships endure. Anything else you want to add on the challenges side?

Jeff I guess, like any business, it’s hard work when you really want to dive into all those different tiers and levels within the supply chain and probably the more you start to scratch around the deeper and darker it can often get but that’s I guess where we just want to be open and honest, we’re not going to get it 100% right but we’ll give it a good go and I guess that is how we’re going to start to see change happen.

Natalie I’d probably add to that from a different perspective. I think it’s

challenging - increasingly challenging - for consumers because there’s different types of fair trade labelling systems, there’s companies claiming to be ethical but maybe not necessarily and what is organic? There’s a whole range of different issues consumers might want to think about and I think increasingly to be an ethical consumer you need to delve behind the label or the claim - and that’s a big task for the average individual consumer.

David In terms of some of the challenges that we find and I think some quite good examples of people who are taking really positive action and actually loving the values of an ethical supply chain and actually taking positive action in the supply chain and make a difference to people’s lives.

Just to re-emphasise a point that’s just been made: there are a lot of organisations who don’t go beyond the bare minimum of what they need to do. A lot of that is based on the fact that people just actually don’t know what to do and they’re a little bit frightened of getting into this as a topic because it can be highly complex in terms of - Who do you work with? and Who don’t you work with? and What are the right actions to take here? and Am I willing to risk finding something in my supply chain and potentially ruining my reputation?

There are big challenges around people taking that first step but there is also in the wider business community a substantial percentage of businesses who only want to comply and do the bare minimum of terms of - I’d audited that factory so therefore I am ethical and I am compliant. And actually, there is a lot of research out there that tells you by auditing only, or overuse of auditing, actually doesn’t delivery any - or very little - positive outcome in your supply chain.

The big push for me is to take businesses beyond that compliance tic box-type attitude to say we have a piece of paper therefore we are ethical to really understand what happens and be transparent and really find - because everyone has issues with a supply chain - and really find those issues and figure out what do we do about that, how do we remediate that and how do we prevent that going forward?

I think there’s a lot of money being spent on being compliant and writing policies and those kinds of things but a lot less money in actually taking action and I think we need to re-address that balance of where people are actually investing the money. As I say, a key perspective, I think, is we’ve gone through this process in the last 12 months around modern slavery and people writing the reports and it’s becoming very, very apparent that there is a lot of investment being made in just complying and not the same amount of investment in actually changing people’s lives and I think that is one learning as this begins to grow globally that we need to focus on and make sure that we don’t just replicate what’s happened in other countries and we focus on: What are the objectives? Why am I doing this? Really making a difference.

Sally David, if a company were to want to start this process - you’ve mentioned that it’s obviously quite daunting - are there ways that they can seek help or advice to begin the process?

David Yeah there are a lot of people out there, there are a lot of organisations out there that can help. They can help actually think about how do you set up a programme, what are the steps that you take. One of the other big challenges around this is not just the complexity of it but the affordability of it, for businesses and brands who are relatively small, margins are very small and the cost in doing that… The return on investment once you actually build the business case is pretty overwhelming in terms of the return that you get but there is an upfront cost and it’s very challenging for businesses to find that money to go do it so there are organisations out there that can help set that programme out, set it out affordably and actually begin to get companies on that journey to manage their risk in the supply chain and help them manage that but also make a difference and do what the guys in the studio are doing and actually making sure that people’s lives have changed by the positive influence of corporations globally.

Sally You kind of touched on it, but do we have a sense of what the price differential at the end of the day might be between an ethical product and a product that hasn’t been produced ethically?

Natalie I think it varies a little bit actually because Trade Aid’s model is we buy high and sell low - instead of buying low and selling high which is a standard business model - we buy high and sell low so the price differential is not necessarily going to be big. We have just discovered, actually, when we put together the business case for the university to become fair trade that there was no price differential on the big commodities; for purchasing of the coffee and tea the price was the same whether we purchased fair trade coffee or tea or regular coffee or tea.

Jeff I think for a lot of things it is actually really similar so there’s not a crazy difference but I guess we perceive the differences. We are used to fast fashion, things being very quick, being affordably, just unbelievably insatiably cheap and that’s where when you’re buying a T-shirt for $3 or $4, to be able to actually make that is just how that happens with all those steps in the supply chain is crazy. So that’s where… Because these big companies are just going in and pushing hard at the producer level - if you want the contract, here’s what you’ve got to make it for - and working back that way and if you say no they’ll just go onto another manufacturer.

In some stuff I think that probably the price of an ethically-made product is more of a true cost of actually what the product does cost and whether we actually just need to change what we perceive as being an affordable price is actually… Those sorts of products are more of a true cost rather

than just these unbelievably cheap throwaway items that you can get for $3 or $4, wear once and see you later.

David I would agree with that in terms of becoming ethical does give you a much greater understanding of the cost drive of the product that you’re actually buying and it does become a true cost up in terms of what you do and then you can make design decisions and componentry decisions based on actual knowledge and fact of what is that going to cost and how do I make that product for the market place that I am working in? So there’s huge benefits on trading ethically and transparently around understanding what the true cost drive of that and ensuring that that wealth or profit is equally managed right down the supply chain.

I would say though that some of the low cost organisations globally that we work with, it’s not necessary that these guys are unethical in terms of what they do because some of those guys are really, really doing some great stuff - and I think there’s a point earlier about this stuff is really hard work and it can be quite challenging at times. A lot of the high-volume, low-cost organisations that we have worked with or do work with are doing some really great stuff from a sourcing point of view and understanding when to buy, how to buy and working very closely with long-term, committed suppliers to really get to those price levels in a way that doesn’t violate any human rights activity. It’s not necessarily if you buy cheap that you buy unethically; and the other point I would make and it’s vice versa is that it’s not necessarily if you buy expensively is it ethical either. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in factories all over the world and the amount of time that I have seen name brands on the same production line as value brands I’ve lost count of them now so it’s not necessarily driven by the price you pay as a consumer because the practices behind that can be very, very similar.

Sally So what as consumers can we do then? If it’s not necessarily cost - and Natalie, you’ve mentioned that it’s not necessarily the research either because there are so many different labels and those sorts of things - how can consumers make these ethical choices?

Jeff I’ve got three short points. I guess we, as consumers, are actually part of that ethical supply chain so it has to start with us and that’s where we see the rise of the importance and the influence we have as consumers on supply chains in terms of where people will go, where businesses will go when the consumer actually demands and asks for it. So the three things I had were: Looking at resisting the impulse - that we don’t just need to buy, buy, buy - actually being conscientious about our purchase decisions. Shopping with intent: really making sure we look into the product and where it’s come from and if we need it or what we’re going to do with it. And finally - I think the most important one that comes at a cost - but I think there’s lots of information out there and that’s asking the question of who has made this and where’s it come from?

We’ve got amazing people like David from Child Labour Free, we’ve got

the Baptist World Aid who do the Behind the Barcode, you’ve got your Fair Trade websites, there’s the Fashion Revolution and they’re doing some amazing work too and there’s a wealth of podcasts and actual material online that you can actually find out more of where your products and garments are coming from. I think at the end of the day just keep asking the questions, that’s the big one.

Natalie That’s a great summary, Jeff. I’d add one point to that which is having made those enquiries, done that research and gauged who you like to buy from, then actually make a change. Even if it’s a small one, make a small change whether it’s to decide to resist the impulse to buy or whether it’s to choose to buy fair trade coffee next time you’re buying a coffee, whatever it is, actually make a small change.

David For me, those points really summarise it: Consider who you buy, continue to question the information that you get. We need more transparency from businesses and we need consumers to apply that pressure for more and more transparency about what action are you really taking in supply chains; not about how compliant are you. I think for me, one of the key questions as a consumer for my generation is: Do we really want to be known as a generation of people who knew about it but did nothing?

Sally That’s a very good point actually. Now just to wind up - also touching and related to this idea of consumers - the University of Canterbury has just become New Zealand’s first certified fair trade university. What did that entail and was it a student-driven movement? All those sorts of things, it’d be great if you could sum up really quickly for us.

Natalie OK. Well actually, we’re the first fair trade university campus-wide but the second university in NZ. In order to become fair trade-certified we needed to be purchasing 50% of our products (where there’s a fair trade option) as fair trade so that’s primarily around coffee, tea, sugar. And at the time we applied to be certified we were up to 80% which was great. Then our retail outlets on campus: At least 30% of those need to be offering fair trade products and actually at the moment I think almost all of our eateries and cafes are offering fair trade products.

It was a mixed student and staff committee that pushed it through and we needed to get sign off from both UCSA - the student association - and also the University Council so reflecting both parts. We are required to report annually on what we’re doing and then support fair trade events and it fits with the university’s vision of itself which is “People prepared to make a difference” so we’re making a difference by becoming fair trade-certified and therefore benefiting some of the producers and partners that we’ve been talking about.

Just out of interest, since we’re here in Christchurch, a shout out to the other fair trade-certified organisations here in Christchurch: Heaton Intermediate School, Rangi Ruru Girls School, a couple of church

organisations so Christian World Service, Trinity Darfield, and of course Liminal is the other one. So, with Trade Aid itself, seven organisations now in Christchurch that are fair trade-certified and we’re keen to encourage other organisations to do the same.

Sally It’s great to hear that businesses, I suppose, if you want to label the university as such, can become fair trade because that’s a big influence, that’s a lot of people involved.

Natalie That’s right and I think it’s interesting just looking at the different organisations there’s a real range there from small to quite large ones.

Sally Great. Well, congratulations to the university.

Natalie Thank you.

Sally Now unfortunately we are out of time, kua pau te wā. The time always seems to rush past! Just a reminder to our listeners to keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter; Jeff, you mentioned a whole heap of resources around podcasts and those sorts of things and maybe we can stick some of those up. And in case you’re not aware, all these shows are transcribed and you can find them on the website of the Human Rights Commission and the Christchurch City Libraries.

So I’d like to say a massive thank you to David, Jeff and Natalie - particularly you, David, at 4am, this is a real commitment! - thank you very much for all of your expertise.

Jeff Thank you.

Natalie Thanks Sally.

David Thank you.