Fair Trade: Three Key Challenges for Reaching the Mainstream

After nearly 20 years of work by activists, fair trade, a movement establishing alternative trading organizations to ensure minimal returns, safe working conditions, and environmentally sustainable production, is now gaining steam, with increasing awareness and availability across a variety of products. However, this article addresses several major remaining challenges: (a) a lack of agreement about what fair trade really means and how it should be certified; (b) uneven awareness and availability across different areas, with marked differences between some parts of Europe and North America that reflect more fundamental debates about distribution; (c) larger questions about the extent of the potential contribution of fair trade to development under the current system, including limitations on the number and types of workers affected and the fair trade focus on commodity goods.     

Why does not everybody purchase fair trade products? The question of the fairness of fair trade products' consumption for consumers1

Current statistics show that more than three out of four people in France have heard about fair trade. However, fair trade goods are purchased in significantly higher proportions by executive class people, individuals with a postgraduate education, urban dwellers and high‐income earners. Why does not everybody purchase fair trade products? An important question follows: is fair trade not really fair for consumers? This paper seeks to gain deeper insight into what social features give rise to the consumption of fair trade goods using quantitative and qualitative data to verify the reasons for which fair trade goods are consumed by particular groups in society. It shows that the lack of access to information and financial resources can explain consumers' refusal to purchase fair trade products. But this explanation is incomplete, as the meaning given by consumers to their consumption appears to be a key‐factor to understand their behaviour: refusing to buy fair trade goods can be a deliberate choice.     

Drawing on “Producer-Tours”: A Technique for Addressing Consumer Uncertainty Surrounding the Consumption of Fair Trade Food Products?

Despite the global increase in both fair trade sales and awareness, actual market shares of some fair trade products remain disappointing. A number of authors have suggested various reasons for this, including the complexity of the situational context affecting actual purchase behavior (Carrington, Neville, &; Whitwell, 2010 Carrington, J. M., Neville, A. B. and Whitwell, G. J. 2010. Why ethical consumers don't walk their talk: Towards a framework for understanding the gap between the ethical purchase intentions and actual buying behaviour of ethically minded consumers. Journal of Business Ethics, 97: 139–158. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the disconnect between producers and consumers (Dickinson, 2001 Dickinson, M. A. 2001. Utility of no sweat labels for apparel consumers: Profiling label-users and predicting their purchases. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 35(1): 96–119. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the problems associated with the depersonalization of ethics in mainstream distribution (Bezencon &; Blili, 2011). This article introduces the drawing method into the field of research on fair trade consumption. Using this method, this study explores student perceptions of both fair trade consumers and how fair trade works. In doing so, the drawing method unveiled two potential consumer types; namely, the dreamer and the angel. On this, we argue that our study reveals some of the possibilities inherent in the use of the drawing method to explore uncertainty surrounding fair trade consumption.     

论我国服务贸易的可持续发展能力

目前,我国服务贸易可持续发展处于比较劣势的状态,总体竞争力不强,难以形成可持续发展的能力。提高我国服务贸易可持续发展能力必须增强贸易实力,促进服务贸易与环境资源及社会的协调发展,使我国尽快处于世界服务贸易市场的主导地位。     

我国服务贸易非公平竞争的分析和建议

GATS是服务贸易领域第一个多边协议,是乌拉圭回合多边贸易谈判的主要成果之一。根据GATS的规定,国际服务业必将进入逐步自由化阶段．．本文从竞争政策与竞争规则的角度,分析GATS协议中涉及的有关服务贸易的公平竞争原则,并对我国服务贸易领域竞争法的完善提出若干建议。     

循环经济——我国外贸可持续发展的路径选择

长期以来,我国对外贸易都是以粗放式发展道路为主:出口产品高耗能且附加值低,而某些进口资源则过度依赖国外市场。粗放式发展道路与循环经济产生了诸多矛盾,面临着很多制约因素,产生了一些负面影响。在世界各国越来越重视循环经济的国际大背景下,要实现我国对外贸易的可持续发展,发展循环经济是一条紧迫而有效的路径。本文在深刻剖析我国传统外贸增长方式与循环经济的种种矛盾以及所面临的外贸环境的基础上,提出了发展循环经济以实现我国外贸可持续发展的战略措施。     

基于企业社会责任的战略营销分析

战略营销既是营销行为又是战略行为,战略营销强调从环境的趋势性变化中把握成长性潜在消费需求以及企业竞争行为的变化,以追求长期性、持续性的营销效果。企业社会责任的大环境使社会责任消费成为成长性潜在消费需求,使对社会负责的竞争逐渐成为主流的竞争方式,因而企业社会责任具有促使营销从传统的职能层次上升到战略层面加以管理的功能。战略营销的落脚点是战略营销决策,基于企业社会责任的战略营销的关键在于相应的目标市场决策和市场定位决策。     

环境资源约束与我国对外贸易的可持续发展

本文使用世界银行的产业污染排放系统对我国制造业产出、出口和进口的污染含量进行了估算,使用世界银行提出的真实国内储蓄方法对我国自然资源的损失进行了计算,结果表明,随着我国对外开放程度的加深,污染排放和资源消耗也呈上升态势。因此,有效地利用贸易自由化政策对保护资源环境、实现可持续发展的目标是相当重要的。     

我国对外贸易可持续发展能力的综合评价

从我国对外贸易可持续发展的要求出发,构建对外贸易可持续发展能力的评价指标体系,并运用层次分析法进行综合评价.结果表明:我国对外贸易正朝着可持续发展的方向发展,但是还存在对外贸易系统结构不合理;经济、社会、环境三者的相互协调性差,尤其是与环境的协调性差;以及对外贸易可持续发展的后劲不足等问题.     

WTO贸易援助制度构建的必要性研究

贸易援助作为WTO的一项倡议,在其实施4年以来暴露出许多不足之处,且该倡议实施期限具有不确定性。贸易援助可以帮助发展中国家克服各种阻碍贸易的限制性约束,充分发挥贸易对于经济增长和降低贫困的重要作用,必须长期开展贸易援助。WTO作为全球性贸易组织,决定贸易援助只有在WTO体系内才能更为有效、全面、根本的展开。为使贸易援助长期实施并解决目前贸易援助倡议中存在的问题,必须在WTO体系内构建贸易援助制度。     

Fair trade and global cognitive orientation: a focus on Spanish fair trade consumers

In the past few years, there has been an increase in the ‘ethical consumer’, characterized by more reflexive values like solidarity, social responsibility, multiculturalism and ecology. This idea has found support in the appearance and development of proposals like fair trade, along with others, such as responsible consumption, the recycling business or sustainable development. In a parallel way, also during the past few years, various analysts have pointed out that the phenomenon of globalization is changing not only the aspect of the world but also our way of perceiving it, which is progressively becoming a ‘global orientation’. In the framework of these two tendencies, this paper examines the extent to which ‘global orientation’ is also a characteristic of consumers of fair trade products. The paper presents a two‐phase exploratory study. The first phase, of a quantitative nature, showed the greater global orientation of Spanish consumers of fair trade products, and it obtained a typology of them. This typology showed, however, that not all the clusters of consumers of fair trade products have a high global orientation, which reveals that the relationship between this dimension and the consumption of fair trade products is not a direct, straightforward one. The subsequent qualitative study examined the components of this global orientation in each of the three clusters where the consumption of fair trade products was the highest. The results showed that the purchase of fair trade products is influenced by the ‘global orientation’ of the consumer, although other factors, such as a sense of social responsibility and trust in international non‐governmental organizations, can condition this influence.     

可持续发展理念在WTO中的体现与缺失

乌拉圭回合谈判的成果反映出贸易与环境协调问题日益受到关注。本文认为,WTO在重视消除关税壁垒,促进自由贸易的同时,也越来越重视贸易、环境与可持续发展问题,并明确将可持续发展确立为多边贸易体系的宗旨,可持续发展的思想体系对WTO产生了深远影响并贯穿于多边贸易体系之中。