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Ethical Buying Policy

The New Internationalist (NI) exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all, and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice

As a publisher the main resource that we consume is paper and so our policy is to print all our publications, including the magazine, on recycled paper. A few NI publications on this site are not on recycled paper. This is in situations where the main publisher was not the NI (eg Peters' Atlas) or where an emergency print-run was required (eg Vegetarian Quick and Easy). If not on recycled paper, we aim to print on paper which is produced from managed forests with no use of chlorine in the bleaching process. Most such forests have in recent years joined the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) which guarantees that the wood used is from a sustainable source.

With the other gifts that we have bought to sell on this site we have looked for products that:

- Are made of durable, non-toxic, organic or recycled materials.
- Are powered by renewable energy.
- Support all participants in the supply chain fairly.

Look out for the following signs and key words throughout the website:-

Printed on recycled paper
Printed on environmentally-friendly paper
Fairly Traded
Organic

We are continuing to develop and improve our ethical buying policy. Please send any feedback you have to me at jamesr@newint.org.

I hope that you enjoy shopping with us.

James Rowland
for the New Internationalist Co-operative

FAIR TRADE

What is Fair Trade? Well as anyone who has read the No Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade will know, it’s a difficult question to answer. The official position is that there are two major internationally accepted fair trade organisations. Members of the World Fair Trade Organisation (formerly IFAT) have demonstrated that they have a 100% commitment to Fair Trade in all their business activities. These organisations carry the WFTO logo and generally police international fair trade. One of their members is the British Association of Fair Trade Shops (BAFTS) who produce a list of those UK organisations which it regards as being fair trade importers. A sister organisation to WFTO is the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) which registers particular products to carry the well known fair trade symbol; in UK this is done through the Fairtrade Foundation. Many of our suppliers are registered with these organisations but we don’t insist; some can’t afford it, some are just starting out, some are too small, and some just don’t want to. Then we have a supplier like One Village, one of the founders of BAFTS, who say: ‘The relationship between the status of producer and buyer is seldom that of equality. How therefore can this ever be described as fair? Trade generally increases inequality because its process automatically accumulates capital into fewer hands. Workers are often prepared to accept low rates of pay only because the alternative might be no income at all.’ (You can read more at www.onevillage.org/fairtrade.htm). So, one of our most ethical suppliers declines to label themselves as a ‘fair trade’ organisation.

Our approach is to meet all our suppliers, to talk to them and check what they are doing. We buy very few products at source, preferring to work with importers who have direct links with their suppliers. We establish that our suppliers know who makes their products, and the conditions in which they are made. In nearly all cases we talk directly to people who have visited where the products are made. We don’t always insist that the products are made by a community association; some are made in small family businesses, especially when our supplier is just working in a single village. Having satisfied ourselves that our purchase will bring real benefit to the community where the items are made we term the products ‘fair trade’.Then, as an insurance, we insist that all suppliers are listed on this website; our current suppliers are listed below (THIS INFORMATION IS NOW BEING COMPILED AND WILL APPEAR HERE SHORTLY). If anyone was ever to query the ethics of one of our suppliers we would then vigourously pursue the allegation.