The Sustainable Future

Wal-Mart organics: A force for good, or evil?

I'm not a big Wal-Mart fan, so when I read that the company was hitting the organics market with a vengeance, my initial response was negative. Primarily I had visions of the the Wal-Mart price squeeze being applied to organic producers.

That could very well be a negative, but on further reflection I can see a real positive as well. It has the potential for bringing organics out of what is essentially an "elite" realm into the realm of the masses.

And it's when the masses start to adopt something that real change happens. What if this is the catalyst for organic production to become the standard, not the special? What kind of impact could that have?

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Coming up next: fair-trade bananas

The fair-trade label is poised to become the next "organic" label in the minds of consumers, according to this article - maybe a little more expensive, but something they want.

The fair-trade label is currently found on chocolate, coffee, and tea in the United States , and is scheduled to appear on bananas by the end of the year. The label assures shoppers the item was originally purchased at an above-average price. That extra money is intended to enable farmers to feed their families and send their children to school rather than to the fields.

In the US, it's still a minute percentage of the market, but growing.

"Fair-trade goods represent 0.01 percent of the total food and beverage industry, which makes them look really minuscule and irrelevant," says Gwynne Rogers, a strategic-marketing analyst at the Natural Marketing Institute. "But a 50 percent growth rate at the $131 million level is outstanding and uncommon.... If fair trade can successfully move its brand to other categories besides coffee, as it should, then it will have the growth potential to become significant in the food and beverage industry."

The US market has a way to go before it catches up with its European counterparts though.

Despite its growth, the American fair-trade industry lags far behind Europe 's. One in 5 bananas sold in Switzerland is fair trade, as is 14 percent of all ground coffee sold in England . The list of fair-trade labeled products in Europe includes rice, mangoes, sugar, fruit juices, and even soccer balls. Europeans have been made aware of such products thanks to government-sponsored education campaigns - something not found in the US .

"As of January 2003, only 6 percent of US consumers had heard of fair-trade coffee, and 2 percent had actually bought it," says Jay Molishever, a spokesman for the National Coffee Association. "Fair-trade coffee is a valid approach, but it is not the entire solution because the volume sold as a percent of the market is extremely low."

How important would the fair-trade label be to you? Would you pay a premium for products labeled fair-trade?

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Big money warms to socially responsible investing

Any time you see an indication that big money and social responsibility are lining up, it's a good sign.

Here's an article that spotlights the growth in socially responsible investing (SRI). "How do SRI funds approach social responsibility," you may be wondering. Well, I'm glad you asked. Here's what the article has to say:

SRI funds use three approaches: screening, to select or reject certain industries (for example, choosing eco-friendly companies and avoiding tobacco or weapons manufacturers); shareholder advocacy, to influence company policies; and community investing, to raise the flow of capital to certain communities.

It's not "the solution," but it's a step in the right direction.

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