Pauline Tiffen is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Fair Trade. She has worked actively to make trade fair for more than 30 years: as worker, company director, innovator, advisor, consultant, mentor and writer. She currently divides her time between consultancy with Verité (Fair Labor. Worldwide) and advisory roles in Uganda as Chairperson of the Rwenzori Sustainable Trade Centre, in Amsterdam as an Advisory Board member of the Transnational Institute and in the United Kingdom as Non-Executive Independent Director of Divine Chocolate, Founding Trustee of the Pluto Educational Trust and a member of the Sainsbury Foundation Advisory Board.

Murray, R. (2015). Taking stock, looking forward. In E. Mayo (Ed.), Co-operative advantage: Co-operation, innovation and how sharing business ownership is good for Britain. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications for Co-operatives UK.

Collective marketing is an avenue through which farmers could receive higher returns from their produce. Bukonzo Joint Co-operative Union exemplifies this: it has obtained both Fairtrade and organic certifications and, by following the Fairtrade ethos and offering farmers a guaranteed (and often) higher price, potentially has a strong role in livelihood improvement, poverty reduction, social inclusion and rural development. In this study, we showcase the role of collective marketing, explore the challenges and analyse the relevance of finance institutions in the development of co-operatives. Our qualitative study shows that collective marketing mixed with the Fairtrade ethos could strongly encourage social enterprise development and could lead to livelihood improvement in marginalised areas. However, one of the most important barriers is limited finances for the production of high-quality coffee, purchasing members’ coffee under the Fairtrade label and investment in infrastructure: availability of ethically appropriate, affordable funding options is critical in the development of social enterprises.

Keywords: collective marketing, social enterprise, development finance, SACCO, Fairtrade certification, premium markets, coffee, co-operative, smallholder farmers

Companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a way to strengthen their business objectives and demonstrate their commitment towards ethical labour practices, safe working conditions and equitable trade. There are many methods to achieve these objectives, and success is often expressed quantitatively. Throughout my twenty years of CSR practice and counsel, however, I have found that while the quantitative success is important for all parties involved to co-operate willingly, to meet objectives, the heart and soul of effective CSR is essentially about relationship building that fuels opportunities for workers, in particular for women and girls in the workplace and in their communities.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility (CSR), ethical labour practices, equitable trade, working conditions

This article reviews the history of third-party ethical certification of food and drink, concentrating mainly on organic and Fairtrade. The strengths and weakness of the approaches taken to date are reviewed. The author includes his personal experience of such schemes gained over the last thirty years. From this, he concludes that third-party certification has not delivered sufficient benefits to producers. He notes the challenge posed by new schemes designed and owned by large food processors and multiple retailers. The article concludes that it may be better to think of third-party certification as a first step rather than a destination.

Keywords: ethical certification, third-party certification