Uncertain certification

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I am writing this post in response to a recent "fairtrade" inspection at Aura, on Friday, the 26^th of October.

I am somewhat deflated to say that I now understand and appreciate the complexity of whole trouble of certification.

First, the basics.

What is fairtrade?

Fairtrade is a certification for manufacturers. This certification verifies that the large-scale produce of a company is made based on a fair cost price, with fair salaries to workers, no child labour. These and other such parameters deemed important by Western countries over poor or developing countries, so that would some clue, I think, about the depth of understanding the investigators have in the first place.

Why do we need the fairtrade stamp?

It’s a useful stamp or qualification, maybe. About as useful as a degree, depends on how you look at degrees.

Why did we get an inspection done, then?

A company that we manufacture for works only with fairtrade certified manufacturers and they alleged an inspection in order to ascertain that the products they receive are fairtrade ones.

Why is it a bad idea?

Well, for one, we have to pay a high-end fee in euros just to get the certification saying that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with our company. 

And then we have to pay some more money annually  in order that we may retain this certification. So instead of charging fees off of people who keep a company going in unethical conditions, it's the good ones they charge.

This means that for those companies working within parameters appealing for the fairtrade certification, there is no incentive to go ahead and get the certification done unless they have a lot of magic money which they didn't earn in profit, because they were so caught up in fair-trade and making things better for their employees.

Moreover, the investigation as we observed it, was kind of lackadaisal. A few people dressed like tourists (note to say that they were actually Indian) came around and said "ah well, my friend wanted me to buy her one of those bathrobes, where can I get it?" asking absolutely no queations relevant to wages, cleanliness or dyeing processes.

Final reflection.

It's simple. The idea is to basically limit the need for external certification of our honesty by basically communicating effectively with the end user.

That will be the aim of the film and all our advertising/ marketing endeavours.