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Feb 22, 2009: At the Sustainable Living Festival at
Federation Square in Melbourne, I attended a talk on Fair Trade called
Don’t Trade Lives . It was presented by Tim Costello (from World
Vision Australia), Cameron Neil (from Fair Trade Association of Australia
& NZ) & Ian Dawestalk. I found the talk very inspiring (aided
by the fact that they plugged our book The Guide to Ethical Supermarket
Shopping several times, and sold 50 copies after the talk).
Feb 23: The next day at work I notice, to my horror,
that at my workplace of about 50 employees, we use Nescafe and Lipton
tea in our tearooms. And this is meant to be an organisation commited
to social justice issues! I don't drink tea or coffee so I hadn't really
noticed before. I realised I had a mission: to have my workplace switch
to fair trade coffee and tea.
That night I started drafting up my proposal. Being the who-owns-what
researcher for the Ethical Consumer Guide, and being obsessed with where
money goes, my main motivation was to stop money going to Nestle and Unilever,
and redirect it to companies supporting fair trade, ensuring the communities
of growers earn a fair wage.
Feb 24: Back at work and I had some research
to do:
- Who supplies our workplace with coffee and tea?
- How much does it cost?
- How much do we buy and how often?
- Who does the ordering, what is the process?
- What alternatives are available?
- Does our supplier also sell fair trade alternatives?
- How much extra will it cost to switch to fair trade?
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It took a while to collect all this information, but it wasn't really
that hard.
It turns out that we get most of our office supplies (including Nescafe
and Lipton tea) through Corporate Express, who have just won a Sustainability
award and carry 66 lines of fair trade products. This should be easy then,
all we need to do is order a different brand of coffee and tea through
our current supplier - job done! Well, I had a few more hoops to jump
through, as you'll see . . .
Mar 3 - OK. I've finished writing up my proposal document,
collected relevent supporting documents. Today is the day I hand in my
proposal to the person in charge of "greening up the workplace",
Matt.
Mar 5 - I go and see Matt, to see what he thinks of my
proposal. He is impressed by my initiative and my proposal document, but
wants to run it past senior management before taking any action.
Mar 12 - I go and see Matt again to check on progress
- waiting on management to review proposal
Mar 19 - Matt sends me the following email:
Clint
I have discussed this with Debbie. She has requested
that we proceed to implement this as follows:
I will place some information on the Intranet
letting staff know what you have proposed. With your permission I would
like to attach your proposal with some parts deleted (your references
to you making a financial contribution to cover the added costs. [The
Company] will meet any additional costs associated with the implementation
of the proposal.).
We will seek feedback from staff on the proposal,
suggesting an initial trial (‘taste before you buy’) and
if successful a phasing in of the new products.
We are also investigating the possibility of
having healthy snack foods in place (instead of the existing ‘fundraising
items’ [Mars and Nestle chocolate]) as a better alternative, and
possibly as a fundraiser for the social club.
Please let me know if you are willing to have
the edited version of your proposal placed on the Intranet.
Thanks for your enthusiasm and considered approach
to this proposal.
Matt
Basically this translated to: I'll put something on the intranet (which
hardly anyone reads), wait three weeks to see if anyone objects to having
fair trade coffee and tea here at work. If no one objects, we will get
some fair trade coffee and tea on a trial basis.
I go and speak to Anne, who takes care of ordering office supplies through
Corporate Express. She has been instructed to order 2 more 1kg tins of
Nescafe, and told NOT to order fair trade coffee.
The bee in my bonnet was buzzing much too loudly for me to sit around
waiting for this Rudd-esque approach to pan out (over-cautious, trying
to please everybody, scared of upsetting the applecart).
I go and speak to Matt. I tell him I think his approach is too slow,
and that I don't think anybody would mind if fair trade coffee and tea
was available along with Nescafe and Lipton. He disagrees ( !?! ).
As it happened, Matt left for 3 weeks annual leave the following week.
Great, now I can get this thing moving. I wanted to try going through
the correct channels with this proposal, but it turned out that Matt's
approach was too slow-moving and cautious for me.
I wasn't concerned with what my fellow workers prefered to drink, I just
wanted to stop money going to Nestle.
April 2 - Today I did what I should have done in the
first place (in hindsight). I spoke to our CEO, who is passionate about
social justice issues and making a difference. I tell him about my proposal,
my experience with Matt, and the hypocrisy of our workplace buying Nescafe.
He thanks me for my initiative, agrees to my proposal, and tells me it's
a "done deal". Just like that - one conversation.
Jasper instant coffee and Scarborough Fair tea are in, Nescafe and Lipton
tea is out. I am elated! I'm singing and doing happy dances around work.
We even returned those two big tins of Nescafe which were erroneously
ordered the week before.
Our CEO said he'd never really thought about it, but yes, I was right.
It was hypocritical of us, as an organisation commited to social justice
issues, to buy Nescafe and Lipton. No more! Other quotes from our CEO
in that conversation include "People will drink what's there",
and "If people want to drink Nescafe, they can bring it from home".
He also agrees to participating in the upcoming Fairtrade Fortnight,
and applying to become a fair trade certified workplace.
April 6 - being a non-coffee drinker, my ignorance once
again comes to light. It turns out we also go through a lot of ground
coffee at work. Another staff member buys this, and she usually gets whatever's
cheapest at Woolworths, which is often Aurora. Now Aurora is from an Australian
owned company, but chances are the coffee beans are still from exploited
labour, since it's not fair trade certified. But getting Jasper fair trade
ground coffee from Corporate Express would cost about 4 times as much.
I don't think management will go for that. What to do?
The CEO comes down to my work area to weigh an empty suitcase. I take
the opportunity to explain the ground coffee situation to him. It turns
out he's weighing his suitcase because he's about to leave for East Timor,
where our organisation helps with IT solutions. Some of folk he helps
over there are the local coffee growing co-operatives.
| He explains to me that what
often happens over there is a representative from one of the big
multinational coffee companies will approach a farmer directly and
offer him money up front for his entire crop, before it's even harvested,
for a fraction of what it's worth. Farmers often take these deals
because they're poor and need the money, but if they wait until
after harvest and sell it through one of the local coffee co-operatives,
they get a much better price. |
My CEO then tells me that he buys coffee directly from these co-operatives
for his own personal use whenever he's in East Timor, and he reckons he
could tee up having coffee sent to us regularly from East Timor for use
in the workplace, and save money while we're at it! Needless to say, I
am delighted with this outcome.
April 16 - Today I went to Oxfam's website and registered
my workplace to hold a Coffee Break event during Fairtrade Fortnight,
on Thu 14 May, 2009.
May 5 - I remind management that our Fairtrade Fortnight
event is coming up. I was chuffed to be asked "Can you suggest a
brand of biscuits that can be purchased". I request Australian owned,
Paradise biscuits.
May 11 - Matt returns from holiday, probably wondering
what happened. When he left a couple of weeks ago the plan was see if
anyone objected to trying fair trade coffee and tea. By the time he got
back the tearooms were stocked with Jasper coffee and Scarborough Fair
tea, the Nescafe he had ordered had been returned, and people were busy
preparing for our Fairtrade Coffee Break. The application for becoming
a Fair Trade Certified Workplace was in too.
May 14 - It's the big day. Fair Trade Coffee Break. As
11am approaches myself and some of the ladies at work are busily preparing
for the event.
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