The Mundi Group

A revolutionary development in automotive transport has uncovered a fuel made from rice and banana skins that would allow cars to do a month’s avarage motoring on 1 grain of rice and 1 banana skin. The new technology, codenamed AP R1 L Fuel is to be tested today for the first time on public roads with a journey from Barking in Essex to Crackpot in North Yorkshire. A junior minister for transport confirmed that this unheard of new fuel would, for today only, be completely tax and duty free.

Rilap Loof

In what could only be described as an astonishing piece of inter-island co-operation, the major food shops in Guernsey and Jersey have got together and agreed to introduce a 5p charge for plastic carrier bags from May this year. This is not a money making scheme as the proceeds will all be donated to local charities, but a genuine breakthrough in the fight against the 10 million plastic bags used on these 2 islands every year. Somewhat predictably there has been a little bit of whining, but you will get that with any change however positive. For these islands however, the environmental benefits will prove significant, as they both have limits to landfill capacity, and being surrounded by sea, this will hopefully make an immediate cut in the number of bags that end up blown into the sea, causing untold damage to marine wildlife. It will be an interesting period to see exactly what impact this has, as local campaigns were already starting to cut the use of plastic bags. The Channel Islands are by no means first to tackle this problem, but a voluntary charge on the bags is an innovative step, and shows how perhaps it could be repeated throughout the UK, without the need for legislation. Perhaps what we are seeing is the start of a community led movement to have needs addressed by community action rather than government.

Fair Trade Phil

ps - shameless plug for a great selection of reusable shopping bags at ecomundi

As part of Fairtrade Fortnight in Guernsey, our Fairtrade Steering Group had arranged a visit by Shared Interest, the co-operative lending society that aims to reduce poverty in the world, by providing fair and just financial services to Fairtrade producers. It was really interesting to hear both sides of their work, the raising of capital, largely in the UK and the lending operations - in this case, their rep from Costa Rica talked about how ethical finance, alongside Fairtrade sales was enabling producers to succeed and expand, to invest in their community and bring benefits to many people. It was a strong and firsthand message that again refutes the nonsense talked by the Adam Smith Institute. A good crowd was present, asking interesting and perceptive questions and the key message coming out of the evening was how important it is to see ourselves as part of these communities, because the decisions we make today will affect their lives as well as ours.

Fair Trade Phil

Following my post yesterday, I am delighted to see a further robust rebuttal today from the Fairtrade Foundation here to the frankly ridiculous comments from the Adam Smith Institute. It will come as a serious blow to their credibility that someone was able to make these senseless and irresponsible comments on their behalf. Fairtrade has always and will continue to enable hundreds of thousands of producers to improve their own lives.

Time has rushed around and fairtrade fortnight has kicked off with a bit of a bang for the Fairtrade Foundation, no doubt a great achievement to get Tate & Lyle to convert all their products over the next year. What a great start to the fortnight! A sure sign of the success of Fairtrade is that people start to knock it - and let’s not forget, there are some powerful industry lobbies out there who have no interest in seeing Fairtrade succeed and flourish. Some of the comments in the media this week from supposedly intellectual institutes are so laughably ridiculous, it makes you wonder who authorised the statements.  How anyone can assume that paying a poor farmer more money for the crops he grows is trapping him into poverty is beyond me. By ensuring that workers earn enough to feed and educate their families will ensure that steadily over time and generation by generation abilities, wealth and expectations will rise, and the families will work their own way out of the poverty trap. Simply bullying small producers with no bargaining power to sell their produce for a pittance will not help anyone - it is neither fairtrade nor freetrade and some of these “intellectuals” should learn to tell the difference.

Personally I am kicking off fairtrade Fortnight with Ubuntu Cola - a great product, and the result of clever ideas - check out their website and keep your eyes open for it. We hope to have our first stock in a few days. Ubuntu Cola is made using Fairtrade sugar from Malawi and Zambia. Over and above the Fairtrade premium, The Ubuntu Trading Company is committed to returning one third of its profits to further development projects for African sugar growers and their communities. Launched last year in Universities, Ubuntu Cola has a distinctive and refreshing taste, perfect straight up over ice or as a mixer in a host of classic drinks.  Fans of the drink include Andy Cato of Groove Armada.

As for Ubuntu, - it is a bit like legal opinions, if you want three versions of what it means you need to speak to two people! Wikipedi gives a vauge description,    but I prefer the short version “I am because you are” - if you have any others, post them here!

 Have a good fortnight,

Fair Trade Phil

I’ve been talking to our friends at Ethical Junction this week, and they have exciting plans and a new web platform coming soon. They are the premier online meeting place for ethical businesses and will be expanding the community element of their site in the very near future - check out their membership offering here or contact them directly at membership@ethical-junction.org.

Here at Mundi Group we had a busy festive season, ten times more web orders and almost double the shop sales we had previously experienced - occasionally we goofed - I’m the first to put my handup and admit when we get it wrong. And we do our damdest to fix our errors pdq! But I have to say I am disappointed with the tone of some e-mails we receive - some of them contain things you wouldn’t say to your dog. Really - do we all expect perfection in other people - do we offer it ourselves. Does everyone realise another human will read that abusive e-mail we have sent? I have spent the last 2 years working for free for the fair trade cause and the consumer abuse I have seen by e-mail this year is enough to make me give up and do something else. Perhaps the answer is just to publish them here - when I can find time to edit them - I will allow you to pass verdict on the vitriol sent to us!

It’s probably no surprise to hear that I come across a great many “Ethical Businesses” in the course of my day job running the Mundi Group. I have to say my experiences at their hands are mixed. In my view, a true ethical business is one where the ethics are core to the business - in every decision, it must be ethical, how we deal with staff, suppliers, and customers must be ethical, how we advertise and portray ourselves must be ethical - and yes, of course, the products we sell must be ethical. I see an increasing trend for businesses to move into the “ethical sector”, with a bit of greenwash, and usually a bit of hogwash, but often the way they interact with customers or suppliers leaves a great deal to be desired. I have been left disillusioned by so called “ethical organisations” unwilling to discuss matters when we have been unhappy with substandard services. Success of course can often undermine the basic premise - as businesses grow and take in outside investors, it becomes increasingly difficult to stick to principles in the face of management targets. And perhaps as more staff are taken on, the original owners philosophy can get watered down. Is it inevitable? I hope not! At Mundi Group we are committed to maintaining our ethics - its more than a business strategy, it’s our personal beliefs and philosophy. 

 Fair Trade Phil

Plastic bags are so cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, easy to carry and store that they have captured 90% of the Supermarket and retailers market since they were introduced over 25 years ago.  As a result, the remnants are everywhere. They are used for dog mess, lunch boxes, bin liners, and much more. But most end up in landfill, or drift around on the breeze until they end up clogging drains or land in the sea, where they are responsible for the death of marine wildlife such as turtles. The numbers are absolutely staggering and this is because the cost to the public (i.e. usually free) does not reflect the true costs associated with production and safe disposal of “free” bags. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills. Once in the environment, it can take anything from a few months to hundreds of years for plastic bags to completely breakdown, and as they do so, toxic elements can seep into the earth.The vast quantity of stray bags has meant a dramatic increase in the amount of sacks found floating in the oceans where they choke, strangle, and starve wildlife around the world. The advent of rapidly biodegradable bags, often made from plant starches rather than plastics will undoubtedly help, but the real need is to reduce the annual total of bags used significantly.

Tax on Bags

Some countries have had extensive success by adding a tax to each bag, effectively making people think more about their use of disposable bags, and providing an incentive for strong, reusable shopping bags. This is likely to become a common approach to the problem, and there are some imaginative solutions such as onya bags, which fit into a clip on pouch, and turtle bags, which are good quality string bags and scrunch into a small pocket sized ball.

Some Scary Plastic Facts

·  500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used each year.
·  Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
·  Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
·  Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
·  Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
 

Plastic Solutions

·  In, Ireland, a plastic bag tax introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved.

·  A high quality reusable shopping bag has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

 

Top Tips to bin the bags

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world: indeed it’s the only thing that ever has!”–

As mentioned in the last post, I went to see a local screening of Black Gold last night. In an era when Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, coffee is now the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.

But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields, or worse, turn them over to the production of narcotics such as chat.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.

Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world’s coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers. The film, like the struggles of the coffee farmers doesn’t really have an ending, certainly not a happy one. If we want to do something about that, then the only way is to do something personally. Governments won’t intervene because of thebig business lobby maintaining the status quo - consumers voting with their feet is the only thing that will shift big business. We only sell Fairtrade Coffee, to change lives, only buy Fairtrade Coffee!

Fair Trade Phil