We all want to live in an equitable world where everyone has the same opportunities to achieve happiness and freedom. But unfortunately, many governments fail to protect their citizens, allowing big corporations to set up shop without proper guidelines to ensure fair wages, benefits, and basic human rights.

The practice of fair trade works to help communities being taken advantage of by corporate greed. It aims to fight for fair wages, humane labour conditions, and environmental sustainability. Some of the industries most affected by unfair labour practices are coffee, tea, chocolate, cut flowers, fruit, jewelry, and apparel.

Garstang fairtrade town

There are many organizations fighting for fair trade practices around the world, but mostly in Latin America, Asia, and Africa:
â?¢ Equal Exchange: Certifies chocolate, tea, almonds, pecans, cranberries, and sugar
â?¢ Fair Trade Federation: Covers almost any imaginable product, including food, flowers, jewelry, clothing, and more
â?¢ TransFairUSA: Certifies coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, fruit, rice, flowers, and wine
â?¢ VeriFlora: Certifies cut flowers that are also sustainably grown
â?¢ World Fair Trade Organization: Certifies a very wide range of products, including clothing, food, beverages, jewelry, and so on

Unfortunately, not all is crystal clear in the world of fair trade. Fair Trade Certified coffee in particular has been attacked by some who suggest that coffeeâ??s low price is a result of overproduction and not unfair labour practices. They claim that by focusing on fair trade rather than finding other crops for farmers to grow, fair trade organizations are perpetuating a broken system. Itâ??s hard to say whether these problems are true. Most still believe that purchasing fair trade at least means their personal dollars are going to support ethical companies. Weâ??ll leave it to you to decide for yourself.

Want one source for all of your Fair Trade goods? Check out the Fair Trade Online Store that sells coffee, chocolate, tea, food, clothing and accessories, jewelry, and more, all from various fair trade organizations. And for more information on fair trade labels, go to the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International site.

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When i first read Ali’s post ‘Surfs up’ about Google’s CO2 emissions i have to admit i was kind of edgy, i mean i work in digtal marketing and Google takes up 8 hours of my day, every day and most weekends (sad i know). According to the report i was making the CO2 version of 1,000’s of cups of tea a day, and even though i love tea, i couldnt drink that much even if it had been sold to me by the delicious Mr Stephen Fry. No, i read the post and i huffed and puffed and avoided my laptop for a while and then i sat down and thought about it.

Googles carbon footprint calculator

I mean, when i comes to the grand scheme of things, Google do pretty well as a provider of their magnitude so much so that they have a full time person that maintains the data centers to keep them running as effectively and as eco friendly (i suppose you would say) as possible. Apparantly the Times were given an interveiw with one of these people, but it never saw the light of day. Now of course, you’ll say i am going to defend Google, i work in the industry and run a blog. Your right, but, i also took some time to look at the bigger picture of all global industry.

Greenhouse gas emissions per sector for 1 year

As you can see from the above chart we have alot of areas to target, Google is merely a tip of the dwindling ice berg and one that unlike some of the other industry’s would not be allowed to get away with cutting corners “i’m guessing anyway”.

I do however totally agree with Ali, that we should all be more mindful of our usage and extend that into our off line lives to make up for our usage on line. Minkbaby are looking to set up a monitor very soon to check our impact and i imagine with the new light shed on Google that they will be considering alternatives to power its huge data centers if it hasnt already.

I have to admit that my eye is firmly on alternative energy at the moment and i am considering, given the examples of author ‘James Lovelock’ that nuclear is quite likely our only real chance of making a difference at such a late stage of the game.

Nite folks, sleep well.. and to others good morning. I’ll get my nuclear post out later in the week, i’m still chewing over the whole idea.

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Saving money and energy with the Eco Button

I have been looking around for the eco button and found that alot of the well known eco stores such as Nigels eco store and all things green charge over £14.00 not including P&P, so i decided to look else where.

Eco Button Energy Saver

If you are looking for an eco button may i recommend a few places that over them under £14.00 with free postage

• Eco Button from Play.com £9.99 (free delivery)
• Eco Button from Daytodayshop £12.99 (free delivery)
• Eco Button from Amazon £11.99 (free delivery)

I hope that this is helpful and please feel free to leave a comment to say if your ordering process and delivery was satisfactory and that the product worked.