Green does not mean Fair

Emily may just be my saving grace.

We met tonight for coffee at Clear Conscience Cafe in Central Square on Mass Ave. (for all you Bostonians, check it out, they serve only fair trade coffees and teas)
Originally we met at a talk by Polaris Project at the Kennedy School at Harvard. This was like 6 months ago. (And this is why I still have no friends in this busy city because it typically takes an average of 3 months to hang out with people. I'm irritatedly becoming accustomed.) Nonetheless, Emily and I connected quickly because she is also a former IJMer. (International Justice Mission www.ijm.org. You need them in your life.)

We shared about our lives, our nerdy husbands who solve calculus problems for fun and at one point she mentioned she liked the blog... I told her I had just come back from a 3 week trip to Florida (sorry for my absence blog) and that a frustration was building in me because of well, a rug. During a visit with my dear friends, Pam and I took the afternoon to window shop and soak up the sun. In a downtown shop of Winter Park, Orlando, there was this white rug made from bamboo that would be perfect in my bathroom. This was one of those eco-friendly stores where they sell handbags made of recycled plastic bags and the best yet, paper made from elephant poo. So Pam and I meander through this store, I find the clearance rack and this awesome white rug that simply belongs in my lime green apartment. I read the tags. Good news, its 100% bamboo. I care about the environment and bamboo is the most sustainable resource out there, right? Bad news: Made In China. I ask for the manager. He gives me some fluff about how they are careful when they buy products, but it seems he has no idea what I'm saying when I mention the words "fair trade" and his reaction to the word "slavery" implied he was clueless about the strong bond between rugs and child labour. Pam and I even googled the company on her phone to which brought no further information. I left that green store rugless and sad.

Green my friends does not imply Fair. Let us not assume this. There are some awesome eco-friendly websites like Pristine Planet where you can buy organic wedding gowns and Green Home that provides a variety of great stuff for the house. BUT! BUT!!!! Many many times these green sites give little or no info on the people who made the products.
How ridiculous that I need to choose between helping the environment and supporting just labor standards? Why the hell can't the eco folks and fair trade folks join up?!

Emily agrees. There needs to be a label, an association similar to the Fair Trade one that certifies for clothing, for furniture, for the stuff in life. This way the Gap can say you know what, just like we started making organic t-shirts and baby clothes because it was a fad, we are going to make one line of Fair Trade jeans. All of us advocates buy 2 pairs of those jeans, Gap finds these pants are surviving the market and even bringing in profit and they decide to do a slave free sweater for next season. And then Gap gets an even more ingenious idea (which they will read from this blog I'm sure) to sell the first ever organic/fair trade khaki pants someone can buy from a mall.

All of a sudden, you've got entire slave-free or rather FAIR LABOR, Organic run way shows. Heidi Klum is turning down photo shoots unless its Fair Labor lingerie, Victoria. Yeah yeah! Hook me up on that homies! This is what needs to happen. And we aren't sacrificing green for fair.

So basically I'm tired of choosing. I'll let you know of any sites I find that do both. (My dearest Sanaa mentioned www.greenamerica.org which rates companies based on green and fair. They are a great resource!) Other than that, I'm still searching. It seems I find food products who do both, but very little when it comes to household goods, clothing, etc.

Maybe Emily will start a Fair Labor certification process for big companies. Maybe we'll do it together. But for now, let's not wait until Fair is a fad to start buying that way.