Korean Job Discussion Forums

[julian_w]

Anyone know anywhere else you can find any other brands of fair trade goods?

www.fairtradegwangju.blogspot.com

Anyone know any locals (or foreigners) involved in the industry, here or abroad?

Anyone ever visited farmers or other producers?

Got an opinion on it? There's a poll on the only page on this small new site.

Thanks for any feedback or contribution.

[tfunk]

If something is labeled as 'fair trade', is it legally required to have been certified by an independent authority? If so, are these requirements enforceable under Korean law?

I'm usually skeptical when I see something labeled as fair trade.

[julian_w]

Hey tfunk, yeah,

I'm pretty sceptical too... if they don't have some kind of labelling.

To answer your question: membership of an organisation which provides labelling is voluntary, but each company must do its own internal audits every year in terms of finances and social responsibility, and make those reports available to meet standards of transparency. They also get checked out every year by that organisation, independantly of their own reporting. That's as I understand it at this stage... although I'd like to know more detail about all that. There are case studies available though. You can find some at the wiki link on the right, at the site mentioned above.

There are, now, heaps of international labels available, some for Europe, some for North America, some for products and some for companies; all work to provide auditing of companies and/or their products, usually financially and socially. In the links list of that website there's a section specifically on the various organisations that provide labelling and certification.

In terms of legal expectations, Scotland and Wales were in a bit of a race to become the first fully fair trade nations. From media reports recently Scotland seems to have cooled off a bit in the last year or so, perhaps due to technical/ legal complications...I'm not sure, but, London is right on the verge of becoming the first major city to be certified free trade.

I guess the next step after that is that the local or national government sets or at least supports regulations for fair trade companies as already established by the certification organisations... but I don't really know about that. I'm just starting to learn about it all.

In Korea there are a couple of online stores that mostly provide clothes and similar products, there's a cafe or two (or more) in Seoul, and there's the Beautiful Foundation, which is associated with the Beautiful Store (which is a second-hand store which has sprouted in the last few years and found surprisingly quick growth) and they provide 'Beautiful Coffee' which is sourced from Nepal and Andes-based co-operatives, and is labelled as 'fair trade', and is available at their stores and at Home Plus... but is not certified fair trade.

To what extent they meet the same standards as demanded by certification organisations overseas, I don't know, but I'm trying to find out. I found the numbers for the co-operatives in Nepal today, and hope to call them tomorrow. Whatever the case, they don't currently display any of the international symbols. One of the basic standards is usually transparency, and a Korean friend has tried phoning the manager in Seoul, but got a brush off on first attempt at an interview. I'll catch up with the friend tomorrow and see what other progress has been made...

Heh.