World Fair Trade Day 2008 - Fair Trade and Environment

How are Fair Trade groups in Nepal rising to meet the challenges and opportunities?

Safia Minney facilitates a debate with members of Fair Trade Group Nepal in February 2008.

People in the Fair Trade movement have argued that environmental issues and meeting high environmental standards presents a further barrier to international trade for handicraft Fair Trade organisations in the South. However, I have tended to see environmentally friendly production methods used widely throughout Fair Trade as an opportunity to expand their sales and social impact. Fair Trade handicrafts are generally hand produced, labour intensive rather than oil intensive, although small-scale technologies also have a role.

Fair Trade handicrafts also maximise the “value-added” - using small amounts of often locally and naturally sourced materials to generate the maximum number of livelihoods for people, favouring production by the masses over mass production. Crudely speaking, this means the planet gives up less, to sustain more people.

As politicians and big business finally wake up to climate change, the carbon trading market is rewarding oil companies and trading companies disproportionately, but when will the ten million hand weavers who save one tonne of CO2 a year claim their 30 dollars each per year? When will organic farmers claim their 60 US dollars a year, as they sequester 2 tonnes of CO2 into the soil per hectare each year? (See Rodale Institute www.newfarm.org). There is an urgent need to help disadvantaged people in the South through strengthening their organisations, and those in the North to develop environmentally friendly supply chains. This will create instruments for change and acknowledge the low impact nature of Fair Trade livelihoods.

Here are a few examples of challenges and opportunities that empower Fair Trade groups in Nepal:

Chitra of New Sadle (www.fairtradegroupnepal.org)

New Sadle supports hundreds of rural artisans in textile weaving and handicraft production, at the same time as supporting leprosy patients with medical care. Chitra has been selling soapnuts, which in Nepal and India are a traditional and environmentally friendly washing powder for clothes. Today, the organisation exports them around the world, to be retailed by Fair Trade organisations. To date Chitra's customers have trusted him and his organisation. But recent interest in environmental issues and opportunities to mainstream this product mean customers have started asking for organic certification and other information that only expensive laboratory testing can provide. For that reason, says Chitra, “We registered Organic Certification of Nepal, a body that will be affiliated under IFOAM. In this way, local inspectors will be available to certify locally, making certification accessible to more smaller groups by avoiding the cost of flying in inspectors from overseas. Another initiative is to secure markets for hundreds of thousands of beekeepers in Nepal with a honey testing machine to check that the produce is organic. Presently, beekeepers in Nepal lose out as they have no choice but to sell the honey cheaply to India, where the testing machinery is available, and where it is then relabelled and exported as Certified Organic. So many people are asking for environmentally friendly products. The year 2008 looks set to be a year when environmentally friendly and products made of recycled materials will make a big impact. For example, we are trying to secure access to technology to make products out of used noodle packets.

Milan of Get Paper Industries, Nepal (www.gpinepal.com)

Get Paper makes handmade paper products out of waste materials. Milan explains, “For a large proportion of our products we use waste materials like shredded cotton fibre from garment factories, and we don't use electric dryers to dry the paper, we dry it under the sun instead. One dilemma we face is that by eliminating petroleum-based glues, which are hand applied, from our products, 20 people would lose their jobs - in favour of an expensive binding machine using pressure rather than glue. So we have to employ them in other sections, and increase orders overall.

“We also use the lokta tree bark for paper making. This is how paper is made traditionally in Nepal. To ensure that lokta trees are sustainably used, and replanted, Get Paper has started a “tissue culture” nursery, which grows lokta saplings and distributes them to the paper-producing villages. These trees have been developed so that they can prosper at lower altitudes of 6,000 feet compared to the traditional trees, protecting the mountain sides of the highlands. Customers are increasingly asking about environmental initiatives as well as Get Paper's social initiatives, and are as positive to hear about them as about the 200 educational scholarships we gave to girls last year.”

Meera Bhattarai of Associated Craft Producers Nepal http://www.acp.org.np/

ACP is largely using wool, cotton and other biodegradable natural materials for handicraft production, as well as experimenting with recycled denim. Recent grants have helped ACP to rebuild their workplace and hand woven fabric dyeing and finishing unit – including a waste water effluent management plant, a lab for testing dyes, and rainwater harvesting. This reduces annual water consumption by 300,000 litres or 20%. “As one of the largest Fair Trade Organisations in Nepal supporting 250 weavers we are keen to source organic cotton and we know that there is demand. In the same way we would like to import organic wool.” Meera discusses how difficult it is to source organic cotton and wool in a country where access to the basics like electricity and diesel is challenging. “We also use natural dyes for commercial buyers, as well as for Fair Trade customers. We can really see the interest in protecting the environment picking up. . . . . We have a canteen that provides cooked lunch for over 100 workers, and all the food waste is composted and given away to neighbours. We are also using paper and cloth bags in our own shops here in Kathmandu, favouring them over plastic bags,” says Meera.

In a country like Nepal where people and businesses are suffering greatly from political instability and lack of access to electricity, kerosene and clean water – can the advantage of consumer interest in environmental issues to scale up their already green activities? We can expect to see some shining examples of best practice become more visible and within that their products more available. If ever we needed a visionary leadership in terms of social and environmental practice - it is now.

Thanking all the Fair Trade organisation of Fair Trade group Nepal featured here Sana Hastakala, Mahaghuti and Kumbershawar Techinical Centre for their contribution to the debate.