Council To Consider Fair Trade Status

Highland Councillors will be asked on Thursday to confirm their corporate commitment to Fair Trade by progressing work already underway to gain council-wide Fair Trade status.

Inverness, Ullapool, and Dornoch already have Fair Trade status and can call themselves Fair Trade towns and it is being recommended that the Council agrees to show support by forming a small Working Group to expand Fair Trade status for the local authority.  

Councillors are being advised that in pursuing full Fair Trade status, they will need to consider procurement of products available through Fair Trade channels (mostly foodstuffs), and community involvement and promotion of the availability and use Fair Trade.

The Council’s current food contracts already include the following statement: "The Council also supports the use of fair trade produce, and regularly promotes its awareness. Companies submitting tenders are encouraged to offer fair trade and / or organic options where appropriate / available”.

Councillor Jean Urquhart, Vice Convener of The Highland Council, fully backs the move. She said: “Communities in Inverness, Dornoch and Ullapool have led the way and the council wants to support these and other communities who are working towards Fair Trade status.  We recognise that the public are concerned about the goods they buy and that the Fair Trade mark is one which the Council is happy to endorse.”

The Highland Council is already meeting one of the key corporate commitments in the move to gaining Fair Trade status by serving Fair Trade tea and coffee at its meetings and canteens.

Notes to editors:

There are five actions a Council has to take in order to achieve Fair Trade Council.

The Fairtrade Mark is an independent consumer label which appears on products as an independent guarantee that disadvantaged producers in the developing world are traded with properly and not exploited when selling their produce on.

For a product to display the Fairtrade Mark it must meet international Fairtrade standards. These standards are set by the international certification body Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International. (FLO).
Producer organisations that supply Fairtrade products are inspected and certified by FLO. They receive a minimum price that covers the cost of sustainable production and an extra premium that is invested in social or economic development projects.