Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Paul Rice - Fairtrade Pioneer & Social Entrepreneur | How One Idea Transformed Global Trade & Ended Poverty Cycles

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Paul Rice - Fairtrade Pioneer & Social Entrepreneur | How One Idea Transformed Global Trade & Ended Poverty Cycles · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  If you're a poor farmer and you only have one or two acres of land, the only way that you can
• 0:05
  truly create economic wealth is by building economies of scale. Some leaders follow the system.
• 0:10
  Paul Rice changed it. As founder and CEO of Fair Trade USA, he's helped over one million farmers
• 0:15
  and workers earn fair wages, bringing fair trade into 200,000 retail locations and generating
• 0:20
  $1 billion in additional income. I studied in economics, international development when I was
• 0:24
  an undergrad, got really excited about going overseas after graduation and helping out.
• 0:30
  The summer of 1983, I bought a one-way ticket to Nicaragua and I went off to work with farmers.
• 0:35
  This journey started on the ground. Paul spent 11 years in Nicaragua working with farmers
• 0:39
  in building one of the world's largest organic coffee cooperatives. After being in Nicaragua,
• 0:43
  working in various communities and really ignoring this whole issue of market access and price,
• 0:49
  I kind of heard by accident about fair trade. After hearing about the fair trade market in Europe,
• 0:55
  I ended up organizing Nicaragua's first fair trade co-op. Over the next four years,
• 1:00
  we were exporting over 100 shipping containers of coffee. After four years, I started to feel
• 1:04
  like it was my duty to come back to the US. And that's what led me to come back and start
• 1:09
  Fair Trade USA. Since founding Fair Trade USA in 1998, he's partnered with brands like Patagonia,
• 1:14
  Nispresso, and Whole Foods. Today, he's here to talk about ethical business and the future of
• 1:19
  conscious capitalism. Let's get into it. Business can and must be a force for good. Business can
• 1:25
  not sit on the sidelines in the face of climate change and global poverty and all the problems.
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  Business has to be a part of the solution. Welcome to success story. I'm your host,
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  What does it mean to be fair trade certified?
• 5:44
  When a product is fair trade certified, what that means is that the factory or the farm where
• 5:56
  that product came from met this rigorous 200 point checklist of social and environmental
• 6:03
  standards. So it is without a doubt the gold standard in terms of social responsibility
• 6:10
  and sustainability. So when a product wears that fair trade certified label,
• 6:15
  it means it comes from a farm or a factory where the environment was taken care of and the workers
• 6:20
  were taken care of. Now obviously there's a story behind where this came from and sort of your
• 6:28
  story as well. I really think your story is fascinating because you were before this whole
• 6:34
  idea even started. So you were an activist and you were living within all these small coffee
• 6:42
  farms in Nicaragua. So how long ago was that? Take me back to that version of Paul.
• 6:48
  Yeah. So I studied economics and international development when I was in undergrad and got really
• 6:57
  excited about going overseas after graduation and helping out. So in the summer of 1983,
• 7:06
  fresh out of college, I bought a one-way ticket to Nicaragua and I went off to work with farmers.
• 7:11
  And I thought, oh, I'll do this for a year or two, get some experience and then come back to
• 7:15
  the States and do something sensible. I ended up paying for 11 years. So from the age of 22 until the
• 7:23
  age of 33, I was living in very remote communities in the mountains of northern Nicaragua,
• 7:30
  working with farmers, mostly coffee farmers. And the mission was to help those farmers come together
• 7:38
  and form co-ops and try to implement better agricultural methods, try to help them improve their
• 7:47
  income. And that was kind of how I got on the journey. I was riding horses pretty much every day
• 7:55
  through these remote mountain forests from one village to the next, hanging out with farmers,
• 8:02
  sleeping in their home, sleeping in hammocks, eating rice and beans three times a day.
• 8:07
  It wasn't adventure. Where did you get the idea? Because obviously people go backpacking,
• 8:14
  people want to volunteer once in a while. Where did the idea to spend time with coffee farmers
• 8:19
  and Nicaragua specifically come from? That's a bit unique community. You know, there was this whole
• 8:32
  process going on at the time in the 80s in Nicaragua where poor people were given access to land,
• 8:39
  in many cases for the first time. So so much of poverty in rural areas around the world
• 8:46
  is due to the fact that that people just don't have access to land. And so in many cases,
• 8:53
  they're forced to move to the cities or they're forced to work for three dollars a day on someone's
• 8:58
  big farm. So the the the question of land and access to land is a big one when we think about
• 9:05
  global poverty and how to address it. And so in Nicaragua at the time, there was something going
• 9:11
  on called a land reform. And there've been land reforms all over the world at different points in
• 9:15
  history. This one was helping the poor get access to land. And I had read about that. I'd studied
• 9:22
  that in college. I thought, okay, I want to go see that up close. So that was why I went to Nicaragua.
• 9:26
  To be in a place where they were giving poor people what they needed most, which was land.
• 9:35
  And then technical assistance and training and tools and credit in order to help them work the
• 9:41
  land productively. And if you're a poor farmer and you only have one or two acres of land,
• 9:47
  which is what most of them had, the only way that you can truly create economic wealth is by
• 9:54
  building economies of scale, right? Which means joining together with other farmers in your
• 10:00
  community, you know, when you have 50 or a hundred farmers, then you have enough land under
• 10:05
  production to buy a tractor, which you can share or buy a processing machine, which then allows
• 10:12
  you to sell a more value add product. Here in the United States, we had and have farming coops.
• 10:20
  It's very common, you know, sun-kissed oranges. You're from Florida. You live in Florida.
• 10:24
  Sun-kissed oranges is a farmer-owned cooperative based in Florida, ocean-sprayed cranberries,
• 10:32
  diamond almonds. So here in the US, we also have farming coops. And again, the idea is with
• 10:38
  economies of scale, you can add value to the product. And that was really what we were trying to do in
• 10:42
  Nicaragua at the time. And I think that, listen, it's a great initiative. And you can correct me
• 10:50
  and my assumptions. But it's a great initiative to give land to these farmers. But I would assume
• 10:54
  that even if they're farming, and I think the problem that fair trade is solving is even if
• 10:59
  they're farming and they're creating a commodity to a degree, people that purchase that commodity
• 11:05
  are still exploiting. So they're still trying to take advantage of these farmers, even though,
• 11:10
  you know, the step one in creating wealth is to give land. But then all of a sudden, now there's
• 11:17
  all these other hurdles and there's all the other things that these farmers have to navigate,
• 11:22
  that they've never navigated ever before. And maybe just describe what you experienced,
• 11:31
  even what fair trade was eventually created to rectify and to fix. But what did you experience
• 11:37
  when you had these Nicaraguan farmers creating growing coffee beans, I guess, and then
• 11:44
  and how they interacted with people that were purchasing the beans, sort of like the commercial
• 11:49
  supply chain. Yeah, yeah. And that's a great question, Scott. And you're right. You know, the secret
• 11:55
  sauce of a fair trade and other forms of what I call responsible sourcing, the secret sauce is
• 12:03
  direct market access by a producer to the market. So yeah, in the case of Nicaragua, for many years,
• 12:09
  I was working with farming groups who were trying to produce more on a given acre of land,
• 12:15
  but they were still selling in the local market to middlemen who were paying pennies on the pound
• 12:21
  for the value of that coffee. And you know, we're talking about farmers. The farmers I was working
• 12:28
  with were, you know, again, two acres on average. Most of them did not have electricity.
• 12:36
  So they didn't have internet access. They didn't know what the global price for coffee was.
• 12:40
  They didn't know the value of their own product. And so they were kind of negotiating blinds.
• 12:45
  And typically, a middleman, a coffee buyer would roll up into their community with a pickup truck
• 12:51
  and say, hey, y'all, today's price for coffee is 10 cents a pound. Take it or leave it.
• 12:56
  Cash on the barrel. Get that coffee. And then of course, the middleman would go back into the
• 13:00
  cities and sell it for a huge profit. And so that kind of lack of market access,
• 13:10
  then and now often locks small family farmers into a generational cycle of poverty.
• 13:16
  They just can't rise out of poverty because they can't capture the true value of the harvest
• 13:22
  that they're producing. And so, you know, after after being in Nicaragua for seven or eight years
• 13:28
  and working on, you know, various projects, working in various communities and really ignoring
• 13:35
  this whole issue of market access and price. I kind of heard by accident about fair trade.
• 13:42
  You know, this was the summer of 1990. And fair trade was a movement that was just getting going
• 13:48
  in Europe. And so in Switzerland and the UK and Germany and other countries, buyers who called
• 13:57
  themselves fair traders were basically saying to farmers around the world,
• 14:03
  we'll buy your product at a better price and we'll help you that way. And their slogan was
• 14:07
  trade not aid. Trade not aid. And the whole philosophy was wise send aid to alleviate poverty
• 14:15
  around the world. If we can just buy farmers products at a better price, then they can,
• 14:21
  you know, improve their lives on their own without depending on foreign aid. And of course,
• 14:25
  this is a very relevant conversation today, which, you know, I hope we can get into a little
• 14:31
  later in the conversation as we see the US government backing away from USAID and foreign aid
• 14:37
  around the world. And so what do we do? But back to 1990, loan story short, after hearing about the
• 14:44
  fair trade market in Europe, I ended up organizing Nicaragua's first fair trade co-op. Organized 24
• 14:51
  small coffee families, they came together. We filled one container, shipping container with coffee.
• 14:58
  We shipped it to a buyer in Europe. They paid us over a dollar a pound of coffee.
• 15:04
  Wow. A dollar pound for a dollar per pound for our coffee at a time when local middlemen were
• 15:09
  paying 10 cents. So we gave our farmers 10 times more money that season. And it was a small
• 15:15
  amount. It was one container, but that was like the spark that lit the prairie fire. Over the next
• 15:20
  four years, I helped grow that co-op to 3,000 families. We were exporting over 100 container,
• 15:28
  shipping containers of coffee by the fourth year. And, you know, the buyers in Europe,
• 15:33
  the fair trade buyers were paying us such a great price that we were able to deliver.
• 15:39
  You know, enough income for farmers to stay on the land. That was an issue that we even
• 15:44
  staying on the land, staying on the land, keeping their kids in school, putting food on the table,
• 15:49
  bringing clean water into their villages for the first time. It was amazing what these farmers
• 15:54
  were able to do without the help of government or international charities. And so for me, that was
• 16:00
  like a transformational experience in terms of how I thought about the challenge of global poverty
• 16:06
  and the most sustainable and effective way to deal with it. I think that's a very smart way
• 16:11
  to deal with it. And I know at one point in your life, I'm not assuming very early on, you were
• 16:16
  anti-capitalist. You did not agree with this system that we all live in every single day.
• 16:23
  And I don't think that the system that we're living is the best form of capitalism, but it's
• 16:30
  so during this metamorphosis and this sort of realization and you building this co-op,
• 16:35
  this is like, this is conscious capitalism. This is the best version of capitalism. Capitalism
• 16:40
  that actually helps. It's a tool that is exploited. But when it's not exploited, it can actually help
• 16:47
  a community. It can help a lot of people. And that's a misunderstanding how you changed your view
• 16:53
  over creating these co-ops and whatnot. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I had lived in rural communities for
• 17:04
  so long and seen so many beautiful, bright, hardworking farmers that time and again, year after year,
• 17:12
  were being left behind by the global market because they didn't have access to that global market.
• 17:16
  And so for me, capitalism was failing now, right? All the opportunities in the global market were
• 17:22
  failing those communities and those beautiful people I was working with. And that was the impetus
• 17:29
  for me feeling like, well, capitalism is the problem. What I learned through this fair trade
• 17:34
  journey is actually, you know, we can organize the poor and help them plug into companies and
• 17:42
  consumers that care. And that more equitable model of trade can be truly transformational
• 17:51
  for farmers and workers around the world. And so yeah, you're exactly right. I ended up becoming
• 17:56
  much more of a fan of conscious capitalism. I saw the strength of markets and the strength
• 18:03
  of consumer education to help the farmers that I was working with. And that was a big deal for me.
• 18:11
  And, you know, actually, so at that point, I'd been in Nicaragua for 11 years. I married a local
• 18:18
  gal. I had a kid. You know, I was rocking the mustache. I was Pablo. I was not Paul. I was Pablo.
• 18:24
  And I thought I would liberate the rest of my life there. You know, it was a very beautiful,
• 18:28
  happy life. I was very fulfilled. And yet, you know, after four years of of leading this fair trade
• 18:34
  co-op, Scott, I started to feel a calling. I started to feel like it was my duty to come back
• 18:42
  to the US because fair trade was big in Europe and there was nothing happening here in the US.
• 18:48
  And I kind of felt like, I have no right to stay here in Nicaragua. I need to take this movement
• 18:54
  to the US. I need to see if I can plant the seed, you know, the US being the largest consumer market
• 18:59
  in the world. See if I can help my farmers by going and planting the fair trade seed in the US.
• 19:05
  And that's what led me to come back in 94 and start fair trade USA.
• 19:10
  I want to understand something because you mentioned that a lot of the problem
• 19:15
  with the global supply chain and coffee particular, but I'm assuming it impacts
• 19:20
  every product that we get from another country. You mentioned that that first buyer.
• 19:27
  Like, I guess I want to look at, like, who's the bad guy? Or is there multiple bad guys that
• 19:33
  create this really harsh environment for people all over the world? Is it the first buyer?
• 19:37
  Is it the corporations? Is it the consumer? Like, in your opinion,
• 19:42
  who's the worst individual that reinforces this negative life for these farmers?
• 19:52
  Is it the consumer? Where is it?
• 19:55
  No, I don't think most consumers are aware that the things that we buy
• 20:04
  have come to us at the expense of the farmers or the workers that are making them.
• 20:10
  I don't think most of us think about child labor in our chocolate bar or deforestation in the
• 20:19
  coffee that we drink. And so I wouldn't blame the consumer. And honestly, I don't really think
• 20:25
  in terms of who's the bad guy. I think in terms of the system of global production and trade and
• 20:32
  consumption and how we can, you know, architect a system that enables everyone to win, right?
• 20:41
  Because right now, arguably, in much of international trade, the farmers are getting left behind.
• 20:48
  Maybe the environment is being damaged through bad agricultural practices.
• 20:55
  So how do we re-architect that in a way that farmers can put food on the table and protect
• 21:02
  the community that they live in, protect the environment? Brands can make money and consumers
• 21:06
  can get a great product that makes them feel good. But that's really what Fair Trade is all about.
• 21:11
  It's creating that win-win-win scenario in which everyone thrives.
• 21:18
  And so now at this point, you come back to the US. You're going to figure out how to bring this
• 21:23
  idea to the US. And that means I'm assuming starting with some of the largest companies in the
• 21:29
  world that would be importing the product. So what's the business case? Because I know that there's
• 21:35
  I know that there's the feel good component. But to radically shift and disrupt anything when there's
• 21:42
  no, there's no cultural shift at this point when you're coming back towards Fair Trade.
• 21:47
  What's the pitch? How does it make sense for people that you first get them on board?
• 21:51
  Yeah, it's a great question. I had lived the life in Nicaragua with those families. So when I
• 21:58
  first came back and started pitching Fair Trade to companies up here, I started just by pitching
• 22:03
  it as the right thing to do. Making sure that we take care of those farmers and their families
• 22:09
  is just the right thing to do. And honestly, that point of view resonated with most of the CEOs
• 22:19
  that I was talking with at the time. But it wasn't enough. So to your point, there's got to be a
• 22:24
  business case, right? Because that's how that's how companies work. They can't pay more to the
• 22:31
  farmers and their supply chain if it means they're going to bankrupt their own business. So there's
• 22:35
  got to be a win-win proposition there. And I think, you know, the first step is overcoming this
• 22:44
  trade-off mentality that we've been taught, that either a company can be profitable
• 22:51
  or it can be sustainable, but it can't really be both, right? That's what I think a lot of people
• 22:56
  believe. Hey, and so, you know, what has to happen is that an executive, a leader, a consumer,
• 23:06
  we have to at least entertain the possibility that we can have, you know, a sustainable company
• 23:13
  that is also profitable, that is also wildly successful, right? And now, increasingly,
• 23:18
  we have more and more examples of that in the US economy and then in the global economy.
• 23:23
  But when I started Victory USA in 1998, it was still a little bit of a radical idea that you could
• 23:30
  be profitable and sustainable. And so, you know, the pitch, you know, in answer to your question,
• 23:37
  was first and foremost, look at the data on how consumer demand is evolving. Look at the data.
• 23:47
  You know, don't think my word for it. There's an abundance of data that indicates that consumers
• 23:55
  increasingly want products that make them feel good, right? They want products that are consistent
• 24:02
  with their social and environmental values. They want to know that they're not doing harm.
• 24:10
  There have been so many scandals over the years around child labor in the chocolate industry
• 24:17
  and around deforestation and bad labor practices and environmental destruction and so on.
• 24:23
  And so, I think first and foremost, consumers don't want to feel like it's their fault
• 24:30
  that that bad shit happened. Sorry. Can I say something like that?
• 24:34
  Totally. I know you can't see that's the problem.
• 24:39
  So, you know, then the question becomes, you know, is that consumer demand and that shift,
• 24:47
  which by the way, we know that that millennials and Gen Z index even higher in terms of their
• 24:52
  expectations of companies and how those companies will take care of the environment and take care
• 24:58
  of farmers and workers. So, you know, it's a future trend. It's not just a fad, right? So then
• 25:03
  how do you tap into that? And with fair trade, you know, one of the advantages of fair trade is
• 25:10
  that it's a certification, right? It's not just a general claim. Like, oh, yeah, we believe in
• 25:16
  fairness. No, no, it's an actual certification. If there's a standard, the farms are audited
• 25:21
  against the standard. And so there's a credibility that comes with a fair trade certified product,
• 25:28
  right? Where the consumer sees that label and knows, oh, I don't have to believe the company,
• 25:32
  right? There's an independent third party audit that's verifying this claim. And the companies put
• 25:37
  the, put the seal on the product. I've got one right here. Here's organic Bolivian coffee,
• 25:44
  trader Joe's. Here's the fair trade certified label, right? So that's how you know that that
• 25:49
  product meets that standard. So there's that credibility. And so, you know, in answer your
• 25:54
  question about, you know, what's the pitch? What's the business case for fair trade? There are several,
• 26:00
  but the first one I would argue is meet the growing demand for responsible products, meet the
• 26:07
  growing demand and be successful as a company because you're tapping into that consumer.
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  that is net suite.com slash Scott Clary. The question I have is outside of the pitch for the company,
• 28:56
  what would be one of the most jarring facts that if somebody knew about non fair trade products,
• 29:03
  they would never buy them ever again. Because I think that's part of it as well. The company,
• 29:08
  yes, they're focused on the bottom line, but who represents the bottom line, the consumer.
• 29:13
  And if the consumer knew X about non fair trade product, they would never get it. What would that
• 29:19
  thing be? Well, there's been a lot of research and media coverage of child labor in the
• 29:33
  cocoa industry in West Africa. So about 60% of the global production of cocoa, which is the key
• 29:39
  ingredient for chocolate, comes from ivory coast and Ghana, 60% of the world of the world's production
• 29:46
  comes from those two countries. And sadly, child labor is rampant. And it's not because, you know,
• 29:53
  it's not because parents are evil. It's because they're poor, right? The poverty levels are so great
• 30:00
  there that people feel compelled, in some cases, to bring their kids to the fields.
• 30:07
  In other cases, there aren't local schools. And so if you're headed to the fields,
• 30:14
  what are you going to do with your six year old? There's no local school. You're going to leave
• 30:18
  your six year old at home alone all day. No, you bring them to the field and then they end up
• 30:22
  helping out. So child labor is a real problem and it's rooted in poverty. It's rooted in lack of
• 30:27
  schools. And so, you know, one of the areas where we've focused a lot of time and attention and
• 30:35
  other certification labels have as well is in how do we lift those farmers in West Africa out of
• 30:43
  poverty? And how do we help them get access to education for their kids so that we can overcome
• 30:51
  the child labor issue? And so, you know, one of the things we started working with Hershey a number of
• 30:56
  years ago, and they source from that region of Africa, Hershey has a small fair trade program.
• 31:03
  They're not a hundred percent fair trade. They do other things as well. They work with other
• 31:08
  certifiers and, you know, they're trying to do the right thing. But with the Hershey fair trade
• 31:12
  program, the first thing that the farmers did with the extra income they got was they started
• 31:20
  building their own schools in the first year in these countries. Yeah, in Ivory Coast,
• 31:26
  in the first year, the communities where Hershey was sourcing built 13 schools. Now, I'm talking
• 31:34
  about simple small two-room schoolhouses. But still better than what they had before,
• 31:39
  which is nothing, I'm assuming. Which is nothing. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so then and the
• 31:44
  community negotiated with the government and basically said, we'll build the school, you provide
• 31:48
  the teachers and the government said, okay, we can do that. Wow. And so, we ended up putting
• 31:53
  hundreds and hundreds of kids into schools just in the first couple of years. And so, you know,
• 31:59
  it was a real impact in terms of eliminating the incidents of child labor in those communities.
• 32:06
  And I'm I'm so proud of that. And I'm so proud of the consumer because at the end of the day,
• 32:10
  the consumer by buying those products was making that possible. I don't know. Have you seen that?
• 32:16
  Have you seen a chocolate product called Bark Thins? I think so. Bark Thins is one of Hershey's
• 32:24
  brands. That was that that's the brand that we worked with. And you know, everyone I knew,
• 32:30
  I mean, that brand was on fire. Everyone I knew was buying Bark Thins. This was like, you know,
• 32:34
  10 years ago. And it really made a difference in made a difference. It kept kids in school.
• 32:40
  It's so crazy to me. I've had this conversation. I had Scott Harrison from charity water
• 32:46
  on the show. And obviously, very different business. But same idea, like the amount of money
• 32:53
  required to make such an insanely an insane difference in someone's life overseas is so small.
• 33:01
  It's such a it's such a small amount of money. You you incorporate this program all of a sudden
• 33:08
  getting rid of child labor. Now you have access to education. Like like overnight,
• 33:15
  like the whole community is is lifted up. And it's not actually like your like to your point,
• 33:20
  it's not it's not even charity. It's just doing business ethically. That's that's the that's
• 33:26
  what it's it's not funny. It's actually quite sad that if you just did business away business
• 33:31
  was supposed to be done, they'd have all these opportunities too. So you're not even fundraising.
• 33:36
  You're not asking anybody for money. Is that do business the way that you do business here?
• 33:39
  Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. And if you think about it,
• 33:44
  if you think about it from the perspective of a consumer,
• 33:49
  you know, there's so much going on in the world right now that has people worried.
• 33:57
  You know, when when when we think about the problems that that we face as a as a human species right
• 34:05
  now in terms of climate change and global poverty and deforestation and the immigration issue and
• 34:15
  all these issues, I think a lot of us feel like we're powerless. Like these problems are too big.
• 34:22
  And we're too small. And what are we going to do? How can we help? And you know, a lot of people
• 34:28
  are are really unhappy with politics, you know, whatever side they're on, they're they're unhappy
• 34:35
  with politics. And so for me, the story of bark thins and the schools that it helped build in West
• 34:46
  Africa to keep kids out of the fields, that's like the most powerful story of your power in mind as
• 34:52
  a concern and mind as a consumer to make every purchase matter, right? Every turn we go to the
• 35:00
  store, we have a chance, think of it this way, we have a chance to vote with our dollars for a
• 35:04
  better world, right? By choosing sustainable products, by choosing clear trade products,
• 35:09
  by choosing a reinforced alliance certified products, there's so many products out there
• 35:14
  that have some kind of environmental impact or social impact on the on the people. And so we
• 35:21
  really do have a chance to make a difference in the world in in small ways, right? But every time
• 35:26
  we go to the store and in a listen, companies, they're listening, right? Like that's one of the
• 35:34
  beauties of capitalism, right? Companies listen to their customers and they respond quickly. And
• 35:40
  so we go to the store and we buy a certain kind of product, right? Because it makes us feel good
• 35:45
  because we're having an impact on the world. Companies start doing more of that. And we've seen it,
• 35:50
  we've seen it over the last, now 26 years since I've been, you know, leading fair trade USA, we've
• 35:56
  seen companies that previously didn't really get it or didn't really believe in it. Look at this
• 36:03
  phenomenon of, you know, what you might call conscious consumerism and go, wow, we don't want to
• 36:07
  get left behind. We need to get in on that. The one thing that I think, feel free to go into this
• 36:14
  as much as you want. But I think it's an interesting idea. When a company only incorporates fair
• 36:22
  trade or any of these certifications for like a fraction of their total product line,
• 36:28
  do people get upset? Do people consider that greenwashing? Like you're trying to ride the wave,
• 36:34
  but you're not fully committing? What are your thoughts on that?
• 36:38
  Yeah, it's a great question. And you know, the reality is perfect is the enemy of the good.
• 36:46
  I would love to see every company implement some form of ethical sourcing in 100% of their supply chain
• 36:54
  without a doubt, right? Whether it's fair trade or something like it, I would love to see every
• 37:00
  company embrace that approach and go deep, go all the way. And you know, in the case of fair trade,
• 37:07
  we are blessed to get to work with amazing companies. You know, we started with Ben and Jerry's
• 37:13
  ice cream. They went 100% fair trade. In our apparel certification program, we, you know,
• 37:21
  we work with Patagonia. Patagonia is almost 100% fair. I didn't even realize, every time I think
• 37:27
  fair trade, I think food. I think food product. But Patagonia is, we're working with apparel,
• 37:34
  we're working with furniture. We just started sort of buying a company called Vagia for tennis shoes.
• 37:39
  Yeah. So yeah, we've started to expand beyond food and that's really exciting. But you know,
• 37:46
  my point is there are definitely what we think of as lighthouse brands, like Ben and Jerry's,
• 37:52
  like Patagonia and so on, that decide they want to go all the way and really make fair trade
• 38:00
  like the foundation of how they do business, the foundation of how they source products for us.
• 38:07
  And that obviously is the gold standard in my view and what we aspire for all the companies we
• 38:14
  work with. However, back to your question about what's the business case here, if a large company,
• 38:21
  especially a publicly traded company and it's kind of beholden to Wall Street,
• 38:27
  you know, they want to dip their toe in the water with fair trade and experiment and see if it works.
• 38:34
  Of course, we want them to try it, right? Of course, we want to give them a chance to prove to
• 38:39
  themselves that fair trade is going to be good, not just for the farmers and workers, but also
• 38:43
  for their business. And so, you know, that does in some sense raise the risk that we might be
• 38:56
  perceived as, you know, somehow greenwashing those companies. I'll tell you what though,
• 39:02
  we sign certification agreements with every company that we work with and today we work with
• 39:09
  about 2,000 companies in the US from everyone from Whole Foods and Walmart to Costco and Safeway
• 39:17
  and Trader Joe's and Kroger, all the major retailers. And then great brands, again, like Patagonia
• 39:26
  and PepsiCo and General Mills and all these cool brands. So in our certification agreement,
• 39:32
  they agree to run all advertising copy and packaging copy by us before it's approved, right? We
• 39:41
  get the right to approval. So if a company submitted something to us that looked like it was over
• 39:46
  representing, like saying, hey, we're a fair trade company, when in fact they're only doing a little
• 39:50
  bit, then, you know, we obviously wouldn't accept that. And so for me, greenwashing is about
• 39:58
  overclaiming relative to what you're actually doing, right? And we don't see examples of that.
• 40:04
  Actually, companies are pretty shy about, you know, overclaiming precisely because they don't
• 40:11
  want to be accused of like not walking the talk. And so here in that sense, for me, the bigger issue is
• 40:20
  how do we galvanize consumer support to support companies that are launching fair trade products
• 40:27
  so that they can test it. And based on the results of the test, say, hey, this is good for the
• 40:35
  people. It's good for the planet. It's good for our company. Let's do more. Let me give you one
• 40:38
  example. We're working with Walmart right now on tomatoes. And Walmart initially launched its
• 40:47
  tomato program. I want to say three years ago. And it was a pilot. And even though it was a small
• 40:55
  percentage of their total volume, immediately Walmart was the largest purchaser of fair trade
• 41:01
  tomatoes in the world, right? Of course. And the tomatoes were coming from farms in Mexico.
• 41:07
  And, you know, Walmart sourced these tomatoes. The farms got certified. Walmart sourced the
• 41:15
  tomatoes on fair trade terms. They paid the premium back to those farm workers. The farm workers
• 41:20
  invested in really cool community outcomes, health and education. And the label went on the product.
• 41:26
  And here's the punchline. Sales went up at Walmart. That's what I'll tell you the whole foods. I'm
• 41:34
  talking about Walmart sales of fair trade products went up over the non fair trade tomatoes. And so
• 41:40
  Walmart seeing the results in on both the farms in terms of the well-being of the workers. And then
• 41:47
  also in terms of the sales, Walmart said, well, this pilot is a success. We're going to do more.
• 41:54
  And now they're rolling out into other products. They're doing more fair trade products. And so,
• 41:59
  you know, you could come back with the greenwashing question and say, well, why did you let Walmart in
• 42:03
  with just a small volume? Well, the answer's obvious. You know, they deserved to test the model
• 42:09
  for themselves and see if it worked. And guess what? It worked. And now they're doing more.
• 42:14
  That's amazing. Yeah. That makes it. I think that I think that consumers are also very smart.
• 42:20
  I think that if consumers understand that one product is fair trade, I think that the people
• 42:24
  that understand what fair trade is, they're not making the assumption that every single product at
• 42:28
  that company sells is fair trade. They're looking and they're seeing and they're following the
• 42:32
  journey. And I think that's a very fair strategy. Because the inverse is saying, well, Walmart
• 42:42
  who has massive impact, global impact with the amount of products they sell in the volume in the
• 42:47
  district, it's just wild, right? Just a behemoth. Walmart is only allowed to do this if they do 100
• 42:53
  percent of their product. You know what? You've just missed a huge opportunity for taking that
• 42:58
  hard and fast stance on it. I think it's a very, very smart way the way you do it.
• 43:04
  So now, I mean, some of the brands that you work with, so Walmart, Whole Foods, Patagonia,
• 43:09
  you obviously have stories about massive wins like Walmart. You also have some lessons about
• 43:15
  the things that haven't worked out. So talk to me about, I think Starbucks is one of them.
• 43:21
  Back in 2008, there was a story about almost certifying 100 percent of its coffee as fair trade.
• 43:27
  So what was the story? Because that's obviously interesting because again, just like a company's
• 43:31
  biggest Starbucks is fun. It's a fun to understand how they operate. But what was the story? What
• 43:36
  was the lesson? And then what was the outcome? Yeah. So obviously, you know, over a 26-year journey
• 43:43
  as CEO of Fair Trade USA, I didn't only have wins, right? I mean, I'm really proud of the wins
• 43:50
  and the momentum. But yeah, we definitely had a number of hard knocks and even colossal failures.
• 44:00
  Starbucks is a really interesting story. And I actually talk about this in the first chapter
• 44:06
  of my book, Every Purchase Matters. Starbucks signed with us very early on.
• 44:12
  In, so we launched Fair Trade USA, we launched the certification label in 1998.
• 44:18
  And in 2001, barely three years into the venture, Starbucks raised their hand and said, okay,
• 44:25
  we want to join. We want to launch a fair trade coffee. And that was amazing, right? To have
• 44:33
  that, a brand of that size joined us so early. And it created a lot of momentum, a lot of other
• 44:38
  coffee companies joined the effort as a result of that. And so super grateful. And Starbucks,
• 44:44
  year after year, would add another coffee and add another coffee. And then they took it to Europe.
• 44:48
  And so it felt like Starbucks was really growing in leadership and volume and impact. And,
• 44:55
  yeah, in 2008, we were in conversations with them around how to go from basically 5% of their
• 45:04
  total volume, which was fair trade at the time, all the way to 100. And they were really
• 45:09
  genuinely interested in making ethical sourcing a whole business approach. And
• 45:22
  you know, I had a great relationship with Howard Schultz, the CEO at the time, who founded the
• 45:29
  company. And in 2008, Howard and his team flew down to Oakland to our headquarters and met with
• 45:35
  us on two different occasions to seriously get into the negotiation around how could we make Starbucks
• 45:42
  100% fair trade. And as you can imagine, I mean, that would have been game changing for the
• 45:50
  fair trade movement. And so we were, we were very keen. We were very engaged around, you know,
• 45:57
  the opportunity. At the time, we were part of a European-based fair trade federation.
• 46:06
  And therefore, our standards were tied to theirs. And their standards would not allow us to
• 46:13
  certify large farms, only small farms in co-ops. And Starbucks was sourcing from all sizes of
• 46:20
  farms, from the small farmers and from the large farmers. And so Starbucks said, hey,
• 46:24
  it's pretty simple. If you want us to go 100% fair trade, you need to certify all the people
• 46:30
  that we're sourcing from, both the little guys and the big guys. And so our argument to Europe
• 46:35
  to the European allies was, hey, we'd like to certify the big farms. That means that the farm worker
• 46:42
  who's making $3 a day, $4 a day on average on those farms, they'll get a better income, they'll
• 46:48
  get better housing and treatment. And so we really saw the evolution of the model as good for
• 46:55
  everyone, not just, you know, not just for Starbucks, but good for the mission, good for the farm
• 47:00
  workers. The Europeans, however, they had a different vision. And to this day, they have a different
• 47:05
  vision of fair trade. They really see fair trade as only serving small family farmers and not
• 47:11
  addressing the issue of workers. So in the end, they said, no, we were not able to expand our
• 47:20
  standards quickly enough to capture that opportunity with Starbucks. And in the end, we kind of,
• 47:30
  you know, went flat with Starbucks and ultimately Starbucks dropped fair trade altogether. They
• 47:34
  don't do any fair trade now. They kind of developed their own, yeah, they don't do any fair trade.
• 47:38
  They have their own in-house program. It's not, you know, independently audited. It's their
• 47:43
  own standard. They own it. And, you know, it's not bad. I mean, there are a lot of brands that
• 47:48
  don't do anything. Yes. I fold their, olders in Maxwell House don't do anything, you know,
• 47:52
  in terms of responsible sourcing. So, you know, I'm not going to throw stones at Starbucks for doing
• 47:57
  their own thing. But, you know, I think the failure on the fair trade side was not being willing to
• 48:03
  innovate and evolve quickly enough. In the end, you know, Post-Script, we ended up separating
• 48:10
  from the European Fair Trade Federation over this issue a few years later. Remove differently
• 48:16
  and you can sort of take your destiny into your own hands and I understand. And so now, you know,
• 48:22
  Fair Trade USA has similar standards as Europe, but with, you know, with the addition of a lot of
• 48:30
  different kinds of producers. So, we certify dairy farms. We certify fisheries. We certify,
• 48:38
  you mentioned it before, apparel and manufactured goods. We certify large farms in the agricultural
• 48:44
  sector. We certify farms and factories here in the United States, not just overseas. So, we've
• 48:50
  really, you know, used the last decade really since we separated from the European Fair Traders.
• 48:57
  Not to go after their accounts. It's not a competitive thing, but rather it's just about broadening
• 49:04
  the vision and the way we articulate it is fair trade for all. Why not offer the possibility of
• 49:10
  fair trade certification to any kind of producer farm factory or fishery anywhere in the world?
• 49:15
  That's the vision. I think that the very noble vision and I don't understand, I don't think there's
• 49:20
  anything wrong with it. I think it also not focusing on the workers is you have to focus on the
• 49:28
  workers because those the workers are the people that make up the community. It's ignorant to
• 49:33
  say that just the farmers are the people that make up the community. Yeah, if the farmers doing fine,
• 49:37
  but everyone else is is again, being exploited, taking advantage of that's not good. That's that misses
• 49:44
  the point. I know okay, so I want to go back and I have a couple other things that I just want
• 49:51
  to ask you about fair trade and conscious capitalism in general, but just so you plug the books
• 49:56
  that that's very important. So every purchase matter is coming out in April. If people
• 50:03
  want to read it and then want to take something away from it, what's the what's the message? Is
• 50:08
  it a couple of the stories of your career of fair trade in general or are there other things that
• 50:12
  they're going to learn when they when they read it? This this book is kind of the the untold story
• 50:20
  of the fair trade movement. So there's never been you know a fair trade insider kind of tell all
• 50:26
  about what's behind the label. The victories, the failures, the lessons learned and what it means
• 50:37
  for both business people and for consumers. And I very deliberately wrote the book with a
• 50:43
  storytelling style because I wanted it to be engaging and I wanted it to be relevant not just
• 50:48
  for business people, but also for everyday consumers who are curious. They've heard of fair trade,
• 50:53
  maybe they don't know exactly what it's about. They've seen that label or maybe they haven't.
• 50:58
  But like as you started the the conversation today, you know fair trade, you're going to see like
• 51:04
  this this idea. Yeah. But you didn't know was actually a label and a standard and I got it and
• 51:09
  all of that. And so I would say, you know the key message of this book to the business community
• 51:19
  is if you're thinking about conscious capitalism and how to engineer a business model that
• 51:25
  truly is when when when right for people and planet and profit, then this book is going to give
• 51:32
  you a lot of how to's. It's going to give you a lot of insights into how you can bring ethical
• 51:37
  sourcing, responsible sourcing and sustainability into your business, whether it's fair trade or
• 51:42
  or some other version, because of all the insights that we we surface in the book over the last
• 51:49
  26 years of experience. And if you're a consumer and you're curious about how you can make a
• 51:55
  difference, this book is going to answer that question because it shows how at key moments,
• 52:00
  consumer demand really shifted the behavior of major multin multinational corporations
• 52:09
  and led them down a more sustainable path because they were responding to your vote in mind
• 52:15
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• 52:38
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  transform your life through language learning. The one conversation that we have to have about
• 54:32
  fair trade is how expensive does this create things? Does this create expense for the business,
• 54:40
  for the consumer? Because outside of money, everyone's going to get on board. But I can tell you
• 54:45
  the one point of friction for a business owner or for a consumer is, is that not more expensive
• 54:50
  for me? And I know that you mentioned the Walmart example where sales went up. But what's the cost?
• 54:58
  Who absorbs the cost? The consumer is the business. What are the commercial mechanics around
• 55:06
  fair trade? And I'm assuming there's probably a lot of misconception. But tell me tell me how this
• 55:12
  actually plays out when a business and a consumer both want to go fair trade. Yeah. So here's the bottom
• 55:17
  line. Not every company does it the same way. Some companies pass the extra cost of fair trade
• 55:25
  onto the consumer and you pay a little bit more. A lot of companies don't. So you know, the Walmart
• 55:32
  story that I shared a few minutes ago, the key brand, the tomato brand that was a part of that
• 55:39
  is a company called Nature Suite, which by the way, Nature Suite, one of my favorite companies
• 55:44
  right now, they have the little volcano shaped cones, plastic cones and it's snacking tomatoes,
• 55:52
  like little cherry tomatoes. Nature Suite as a result of the Walmart pilot decided to go 100%
• 56:00
  fair trade. So all Nature Suite's snacking tomatoes now are fair trade, which is just, you know,
• 56:06
  it shows the ripple effects of this movement. But in the case of Walmart and Nature Suite,
• 56:12
  they paid the premium to the workers and they didn't charge the consumer anymore.
• 56:17
  And so then you might ask, oh wow, if they didn't pass that extra cost onto the consumer,
• 56:23
  aren't they losing money? And the answer is no, because they're growing volume.
• 56:29
  Right? So they're going for volume and market share. Yeah.
• 56:32
  And that's how they look at the profitability of that program and say, okay, you know, we gave up
• 56:39
  a couple of pennies in, you know, in the fair trade premium that went back to the worker,
• 56:44
  but that got covered by the added volumes, the added sales volume and by the brand Halo,
• 56:52
  right? Of now offering a product that really speaks to consumers in a different way. So
• 56:58
  you know, if you look at company after company, you'll see different approaches to this issue of,
• 57:06
  of, you know, who covers the cost of sustainability in fair trade. We do have this required premium,
• 57:13
  right? We require that all the brands that we work with, whether it's Hershey or Walmart or
• 57:19
  Whole Foods or Patagonia, they all pay a little bit more above the market price back to the farmers
• 57:25
  or the workers. And that's what the community then uses to invest in health and education and
• 57:32
  clean water and gender equity and reforestation and all these amazing outcomes, right? So that is
• 57:37
  part of the secret sauce of fair trade. We are delivering more money back to families and
• 57:43
  communities around the world. But then the question is, who pays for that? And, you know, again,
• 57:48
  either a brand will pass it on to us. And it's not a huge markup. You know, on average,
• 57:53
  in my cost, five, five percent more, you know, if a brand decides to pass that along. But in
• 58:00
  many cases, it's got, they just maintain the price and the benefit for the brand then becomes
• 58:07
  the brand image. Well, that's a presentation. That's a strategic point. Exactly. And the sales volume.
• 58:15
  Yeah. I was going to, the other, the other thing that I think is interesting is when people
• 58:20
  think about fair trade, they think they think about social responsibility, social sustainability.
• 58:26
  But you've alluded to this a few times. There's an environmental impact as well. So when you think,
• 58:31
  it's so there's always like positive, like these net positive ripple effects, like butterfly,
• 58:36
  very positive butterfly effect from incorporating fair trade. So what happens outside of
• 58:42
  improving the lives of these farmers or these workers? Does this mean that you mentioned deforestation?
• 58:49
  I want to understand that environment. Also, you mentioned like you mentioned you fisheries. So
• 58:55
  is there is a responsible sourcing of the actual animals as well. So all these other
• 59:00
  incillary factors that people may not even realize happen when you shop fair trade. What are they?
• 59:07
  Every sustainability expert today will tell you that social and environmental sustainability
• 59:13
  go together. You can't save the trees if you don't work with the people who live in the forest.
• 59:20
  You can't save the people who live in the forest unless you help protect the environment where
• 59:25
  they live. The two go together. Social and environmental sustainability are really inseparable.
• 59:30
  And so that's reflected in the fair trade standard. As I mentioned, it's a 200 point checklist
• 59:36
  of social and environmental criteria about a third of the standard is environmental. So
• 59:43
  you're right. Most people think, oh, fair trade, that's that thing that helps the workers.
• 59:48
  Yeah. That's true. But we also have rigorous requirements around the environment. For example,
• 59:55
  our farmers are not allowed to cut the forests around their farm. They have to have find a way to
• 1:00:00
  preserve the forest in and around their farm. There's a long list of chemicals that they're not
• 1:00:05
  allowed to use, right? I was going to ask if there's if there's actually impact on the quality of
• 1:00:10
  the food as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, we don't require that farmers go organic.
• 1:00:17
  There's a long list of chemicals they can't use, but they are allowed, for example, to use fertilizer
• 1:00:21
  and so on. But as it turns out, about 70% of all fair trade farmers are also certified organic.
• 1:00:30
  So there's a real alignment between fair trade and organic, which I just love. Most of the farmers
• 1:00:36
  that I worked with back in Nicaragua back in the day ended up going certified organic as well.
• 1:00:41
  It's kind of their expression of being social and environmental. But if they aren't, by the way,
• 1:00:46
  let's just say, even if they aren't, you still have you still have this list of pesticides that you're
• 1:00:52
  certifying against. So if somebody's going shopping and they can't find organic whatever, well,
• 1:00:57
  you're still going to get less garbage by shopping fair trade than just picking up a product
• 1:01:02
  off the shelf. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And you know, our standard is more rigorous. In many cases,
• 1:01:08
  even the US law, for example, you know, you can go down to your local home depot and buy roundup
• 1:01:14
  and spray it on the weeds in your yard. Fair trade farmers are not allowed to use roundup,
• 1:01:19
  right? Like that's one that's one of the chemicals on the list that we have deemed so toxic
• 1:01:25
  for the farm or farmer farmer or farm worker applying it as well as, you know, potentially for
• 1:01:29
  the consumer, we don't allow it. So those are two things, right? Can't cut down the trees,
• 1:01:35
  can't use a long list of chemicals. But then there are also all these other practices that are
• 1:01:40
  codified in the fair trade standard around protecting soil and water sources so that both of those
• 1:01:48
  are are conserved and so that there's no pollution in the water. So, you know, suffice to say,
• 1:01:54
  we really believe that the standard works on both the social or human level as well as the
• 1:01:59
  environmental level. And that's what consumers want, right? Consumers want to see both.
• 1:02:04
  You have, and you know, you mentioned this before we even started and you asked me like, okay,
• 1:02:10
  you know, how are you doing with the election and everything that's happening in the US right now?
• 1:02:15
  Because obviously I just moved down here over the past five years. And I mentioned, you know,
• 1:02:20
  personally, I'm very fortunate, you know, life is good work is good. It's not affecting me too much.
• 1:02:26
  But you did mention and you work with a lot of groups around the world. You mentioned, you say
• 1:02:31
  and some other decisions that Trump has made, which I guess impact a lot of the work that you do.
• 1:02:37
  And I don't think people understand because again, people see these news headlines about you say it
• 1:02:42
  or other programs or other decisions or other executive orders. And if it doesn't impact their day
• 1:02:48
  to day, I don't think they can understand how it really impacts the world that goes on around them.
• 1:02:52
  So what does this mean for you, for the people that you, I mean, you've given back, if my numbers are right,
• 1:03:00
  you give them back over 1.2 billion in fair trade earnings to farmers. So big amounts of money,
• 1:03:07
  go back to people that create our goods and our services and our food and our products, large amounts of money.
• 1:03:13
  So what do some of these Trump policies, things that we may not have thought of, how does this
• 1:03:18
  impact fair trade? How does this impact farmers, workers globally? What should we know?
• 1:03:25
  Yeah. Well, look, you know, for me, this question around immigration has to start with what is the
• 1:03:34
  root cause of illegal immigration? What is the root cause? What's driving it? And you know, there's
• 1:03:42
  a narrative that the people who come to the United States are criminals. That's a myth. That's just
• 1:03:47
  not true. Most of the people who are immigrating to the United States are fleeing poverty.
• 1:03:53
  They're fleeing poverty or repression, right? We know that they're repressive governments in
• 1:03:58
  Venezuela and, you know, in other countries in Latin America. And we know, especially in Mexico and
• 1:04:06
  Central America, that poverty is very, very severe. And it's getting worse with climate change when
• 1:04:12
  hurricanes hit Central America and farmers, you know, land is washed away. Oftentimes they hit the
• 1:04:19
  road and they immigrate north out of desperation, right? And so what does fair trade do? At the end
• 1:04:25
  of the day, fair trade seeks to provide a sustainable livelihood for people in Mexico and Honduras
• 1:04:32
  and Guatemala so that they can stay home. And when they can make a decent living, they will stay
• 1:04:40
  home. They do stay home, right? I mean, you think about it. No one wants to risk life and limb
• 1:04:47
  crossing, you know, the entire length of Mexico crossing the border, which is very dangerous,
• 1:04:53
  coming to a country where they don't speak the language, where they might get rounded up. Like,
• 1:04:57
  no one does that because they want to. They do it because they have to because they're poor and
• 1:05:01
  they're desperate. And so what I love about fair trade, among other things, is that we're helping
• 1:05:08
  to stabilize those families in their home community. And we have great numbers actually on
• 1:05:16
  worker retention, that brand, that tomato company that I mentioned a minute ago, Nature Suite,
• 1:05:22
  they have a number of farms in Mexico. And what they found was when they certified those farms
• 1:05:27
  as fair trade and started providing benefits to those farms, the rate of worker retention
• 1:05:33
  went sky high. So in other words, at the end of the season, the workers aren't leaving,
• 1:05:38
  they're staying, right? They're staying season after season. And so, you know, that for me is another
• 1:05:45
  indicator of the success of our model. When we see worker retention, people are staying home,
• 1:05:49
  they're staying on the farm, they're finding a decent enough living that, you know, that's the
• 1:05:59
  better option for them. And so for me, that's really, you know, at the core of the whole immigration
• 1:06:03
  conversation is, why do people leave home? And how can we help them stay? You know, I'll just say one
• 1:06:10
  more thing about this issue. Oh, sorry. I just wanted to, I think that what I want to understand
• 1:06:16
  as well, and then go, but just think about this. So the policies that Trump's are basically what
• 1:06:24
  he's saying is if you, if you get here illegally, you can't stay here. That's basically what the
• 1:06:29
  policy is. But what you're saying is fair trade makes it so that the people don't ever have to
• 1:06:36
  leave in the first place. Are there, are there ideas or policies that are damaging to fair trade
• 1:06:43
  on like a global level? Because Trump is not actually saying, I don't want you to go work in your
• 1:06:49
  home country. He's just saying, I don't want you to stay here. So are there any policies that are
• 1:06:53
  not good for supporting this whole fair trade movement? That's the only question that I had.
• 1:06:58
  But then you can go ahead. You know, our movement, the fair trade movement is trying to create
• 1:07:04
  a model of business that is more responsible, that is more sustainable, and where everyone thrives
• 1:07:11
  from the worker to the farmer to the company to the consumer. And so if you look at the current
• 1:07:20
  policy that's being implemented in terms of mass deportation, what you're looking at is quite
• 1:07:29
  possibly the disruption of some of the most important businesses in our, in our nation,
• 1:07:35
  namely the farms that produce the food that we eat, right? And I'm hearing this now from lots
• 1:07:40
  of different farmers that we work with here in the US because we, we certify farms and factories,
• 1:07:45
  not only overseas, but also here in the US. And there's a real concern among farm owners and
• 1:07:53
  major brands here in the US that the workers that live and work on those farms, and in the many
• 1:08:02
  cases that have been here for 10 or 20 years, you know, hardworking, tax paying people will end up
• 1:08:10
  being deported. And so what that does is it puts our own production at risk. And we've heard
• 1:08:21
  this and we've read interviews about this, you know, in other sectors, not just the food sector,
• 1:08:25
  but in the meat packing industry and in the construction industry and in in a number of industries
• 1:08:30
  where we depend on immigrant labor, you know, there's real concern about labor shortages.
• 1:08:37
  And I think the concern is driven in part not just by the possibility that, you know,
• 1:08:44
  of raids and of people being rounded up and deported, but it's also about people who are just
• 1:08:51
  afraid to go outside. And so, you know, they're not going to work because they're afraid of, you know,
• 1:09:00
  being seen on the street. So, you know, I think it's a really tough moment with these policies
• 1:09:07
  for a lot of the American business community. And certainly, they're alternatives.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, no, I was just thinking, you know, you make a good point because you actually aren't just working
• 1:09:18
  with farms and and and farmers and workers overseas. You're working with farmers and workers
• 1:09:26
  everywhere that create products for us, including in the US that will be affected by this.
• 1:09:32
  Yeah. If you think about, you had one more point about sort of where you want to take
• 1:09:42
  the future of fair trade. Maybe think about going forward because you just celebrated your 26
• 1:09:49
  anniversary, which is absolutely fabulous. Congratulations. It's not a small feat, not a small feat
• 1:09:55
  at all. Clerk, I started the organization when I was 15. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
• 1:10:04
  No, you look, listen, you look great for 30. If you think about the future of fair trade,
• 1:10:11
  as the organization grows, let me know where you want to take it. But also, what are some other
• 1:10:16
  things, some other products that you're interested in and wrapping into this fair trade program,
• 1:10:24
  things that should be ethically sourced, but aren't right now. That's a great question. You
• 1:10:29
  know, we just started into the beauty industry of cosmetics with a company called Elf Beauty.
• 1:10:37
  I don't know if you've heard of them. Elf stands for eyes lips and face and Elf has had just
• 1:10:46
  an extraordinary rise over the last five, six years. They are now the number two cosmetics brand
• 1:10:52
  in America and they're going global and they're really deeply committed to sustainability as a
• 1:11:00
  company. And so they just in the space of a couple of years are already 80, 85% fair trade and
• 1:11:06
  they're certifying all of their factories over the next couple of years. So really proud of them
• 1:11:11
  and the ripple effect that that could have in the beauty industry. Similarly, I mentioned moving
• 1:11:17
  into footwear. So we just started working with a company called Vagia, V-E-J-A, kind of a cool
• 1:11:24
  hipster tennis shoe brand and they're really excited about fair trade and certifying their factories.
• 1:11:31
  And so again, part of our theory of change is how do we engage with some of the most sustainable
• 1:11:38
  and pioneering brands? We call them lighthouse brands in different industries and by working with
• 1:11:45
  them create a ripple effect that will bring others along. So really excited about that. Honestly,
• 1:11:51
  Scott, I mean, I'd love to see fair trade start to certify electronics. We all are so attached to
• 1:12:00
  our phones and the phones that we use are made overseas. So many of the same labor issues and
• 1:12:12
  sourcing issues with the raw ingredients, the materials. So I think there's a future in which we
• 1:12:20
  certify electronics and toys and all kinds of manufacturer products. But let's face it, the most
• 1:12:32
  intimate relationship we have with a product is with the food that we eat. And you know,
• 1:12:37
  there's ample evidence and data indicating that Americans are becoming
• 1:12:44
  gradually more and more conscious about the health implications of our food choices.
• 1:12:52
  Health and wellness is such a big important category. And fair trade and organics and non-GMO and
• 1:13:00
  things like that all kind of sit within that broader movement. And you know, the data now suggests that
• 1:13:06
  more than half of American shoppers are looking for healthier options. And so fair trade for me
• 1:13:14
  fits within that kind of umbrella group of an option that's healthier not only for
• 1:13:19
  for people, the consumer, but also for the planet and for the communities that are producing. So
• 1:13:24
  I think we'll see fair trade brands in every food product possible over time.
• 1:13:31
  If you add a message to the person listening to this and they want to
• 1:13:37
  they want to make more ethical decisions, more ethical sourcing decisions, more sustainable
• 1:13:43
  decisions about decisions about the products that they consume and make fair trade even more
• 1:13:48
  mainstream and the idea, like the ideology behind fair trade is what I think is very important.
• 1:13:55
  What would be the steps they can take tomorrow, the call to action that you want to leave them with?
• 1:14:01
  First and foremost, look for the label. When you go to the grocery store or to a cafe,
• 1:14:12
  anywhere that we buy our food, look for that fair trade certified label on the package. And
• 1:14:21
  educate yourself about what that product embodies not only in terms of fair trade, but is it
• 1:14:32
  organic? Is it non-GMO? What other attributes are there? I think it's kind of like
• 1:14:41
  being mindful of our shopping choices, being thoughtful and remembering that everything that we
• 1:14:49
  consume is made by someone. You know, everything that we consume is made by a farmer and their
• 1:14:59
  family or a worker and their family and it has an impact on the environment where where the product
• 1:15:04
  comes from. And so starting to think and shop with that mindset and then looking for the label,
• 1:15:10
  that's the biggest call to action. You know, the title of my book is Every Purchase Matters. And
• 1:15:16
  I really do believe that and I've seen it, excuse me, I've seen that over the last 26 years
• 1:15:23
  in terms of our purchasing decisions really impacting the way companies behave.
• 1:15:32
  It's pretty extraordinary that when companies see consumers voting with their dollars for
• 1:15:39
  a fair trade product, for example, companies want to get in on it and that has led to some
• 1:15:44
  extraordinary growth and shifts in the way companies source their products and the impact
• 1:15:52
  that that has. So, you know, we do have tremendous power as individual consumers. We have tremendous
• 1:15:59
  power to affect change. Every time we go to the store. So that's the call to action.
• 1:16:05
  I love it. Paul, okay, first of all, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it and I appreciate
• 1:16:10
  the mission that you're onto. I think it's a very noble one and it's, you know, I speak to a lot
• 1:16:17
  of incredible people. And I think that to be able to say, hey, listen, because of my work,
• 1:16:24
  because of your work, you've made a shift in not only how we buy, but sort of the future of the
• 1:16:29
  health of our planet of being socially responsible. That's a huge movement. That's an absolutely
• 1:16:35
  enormous movement. So I can just want to say congratulations. It's incredible. It's absolutely
• 1:16:39
  incredible. That's not a small achievement. You can build a, you can build a good company,
• 1:16:46
  but sometimes you have to think about how does this impact greater than, you know, my own success
• 1:16:52
  and my own wealth. And I think that starting a movement, not many people can do that successfully.
• 1:16:57
  It's a hard thing to do. So good job. I appreciate that. Can I, can I leave you with a story?
• 1:17:05
  Yeah, please be my guest. One of my favorite stories from my time in Nicaragua and I tell this
• 1:17:13
  story actually in, in my book is about a young woman named Yolanda Rivera. And Yolanda is the
• 1:17:24
  youngest daughter of a farmer named Santiago and his wife, Hermelinda. And I actually,
• 1:17:32
  I have a picture of them. They, they, they, they became famous eventually. And this coffee company
• 1:17:39
  Pachamama decided to put their faces on the, on the, on the, on the bag. So that's Santiago. That's
• 1:17:45
  his wife, Hermelinda. Santiago is very typical of a, of a coffee farmer in, you know, in Latin America.
• 1:17:53
  He was born into a coffee growing family. His family was very poor. His parents pulled him out of
• 1:18:01
  school after the second grade because they needed him to help out in the fields. So he learned
• 1:18:07
  how to read and write. And he's been working since he was nine. And his wife, same story. She
• 1:18:12
  studied the second grade, learned how to read and write. And she was helping out with her family
• 1:18:16
  since she was nine. And so when Santiago was, you know, an older man, he joined a co-op and they
• 1:18:29
  got fair trade certified. They started to selling to fair trade buyers and they started getting
• 1:18:34
  more money for their coffee. And one of the first things that his village did was they set aside
• 1:18:39
  money to create a scholarship program for the kids in the community so that they could stay in school.
• 1:18:47
  Right. I've never met a family anywhere in the world that didn't understand the value of
• 1:18:51
  education as a path out of poverty for their kids. And so you might ask, well, why did they need
• 1:18:58
  a scholarship money for school? Isn't school free? And the answer is, yeah, school is free
• 1:19:04
  in Nicaragua. And in most countries around the world that I've visited, school is free.
• 1:19:08
  But at that time, you were not allowed to go to school if you didn't have shoes on your feet.
• 1:19:17
  And poor farmers often couldn't afford shoes. So you need a shoes. You need a uniform
• 1:19:24
  money. You needed book money. You needed other material money. And so what we calculated was that
• 1:19:30
  it took about $200 a year to keep a kid in school. That was it. 200 books could cover the shoes,
• 1:19:39
  the books, the bus money, everything that they needed. And so, you know, for a whole generation,
• 1:19:47
  generations of kids, that $200 was like a wall locking them out of a better future. So what did
• 1:19:53
  this co-op do when they joined Fair Trade? They set up a scholarship fund $200 per kid per year.
• 1:19:59
  And they started sending their kids on through school. Many of them were able to go
• 1:20:06
  on to high school. And Santiago's youngest daughter, Yolanda, was one of the first kids to benefit
• 1:20:13
  from the scholarship program. So Yolanda, who's a turns out, is just a brilliant young woman.
• 1:20:20
  She became the first woman in the history of her community to finish high school.
• 1:20:27
  She went on to college, also with this Fair Trade Scholarship fund. She went on to college,
• 1:20:33
  went to the city, got a degree in biology, and came back home because she felt so committed to
• 1:20:40
  her community and so indebted to her community. She came back home, she got a job at the local
• 1:20:44
  clinic in the lab at the local clinic. And she's there to this day serving her community.
• 1:20:52
  And perhaps even more importantly, serving as a role model for every little girl in that village
• 1:21:02
  of someone who was able to dream big, right? Or for generation after generation, you know, young girls,
• 1:21:11
  their dreams are pretty limited. You know, you become a farmer's daughter and then you become
• 1:21:17
  a farmer's wife. And so for Yolanda to break the barrier and go on and finish college and then not
• 1:21:25
  stay in the city, not stay with the bright lights, but come back home to her community. And
• 1:21:32
  you know, Santiago and I'm really into that whole family. I'm very close to them. Every time I go
• 1:21:37
  back to Nicaragua, I go up and shoot the shit on their front porch, looking out over the coffee
• 1:21:43
  fields and Yolanda always comes by to say hi because she lives in the community. And you know,
• 1:21:49
  I can just see this gaggle of girls surrounding her every time I show up. And I used to think that,
• 1:21:55
  that you know, the kids showed up for the gringo, the crazy gringo that got coming back. Well,
• 1:21:59
  they were coming up to hang out with her. And I just love that. You know, it's the power
• 1:22:06
  of a great example. It's the power that you and I have every time we buy coffee to help young
• 1:22:12
  women like Yolanda dream big and become a role model for for every girl in their community.
• 1:22:19
  Beautiful. Beautiful. I don't think people even understand the impact they can have with such
• 1:22:23
  simple action. We always try and solve such big problems. We always feel so help us to solve big
• 1:22:28
  problems, but but such simple action can have such an impact in someone's life. The beautiful thought,
• 1:22:36
  the beautiful, beautiful thought. Where can people learn more about free trade? Obviously,
• 1:22:43
  the book will be available anywhere. I got so into the story. I totally blank for a second.
• 1:22:57
  Where can people, okay, where can people learn more about fair trade? The book will be available.
• 1:23:02
  Obviously, anywhere you can get books, Amazon will put a link in the show notes.
• 1:23:07
  Are there any websites for fair trade or for yourself? Do you just want to let people know?
• 1:23:12
  I can be socials as well. Wherever you want to send people. Yeah, absolutely. So PaulRice.org
• 1:23:19
  and fair trade certified.org. All the information and more.
• 1:23:24
  I usually ask this question at the end just to close it out.
• 1:23:29
  And you can take the question and however way you want. I always ask out of all the lessons and
• 1:23:33
  the learnings over your life and your career, what would be a lesson that you want to pass onto
• 1:23:37
  your kids? Because I think that's usually a very meaningful lesson that's really, you know,
• 1:23:42
  hit home with you. And it can be a life lesson. It could be a lesson about the world,
• 1:23:47
  about consumerism, about capitalism, about helping people. Whatever the lesson is, it stands out
• 1:23:53
  that you want to leave the audience with or even something that we haven't spoken about yet.
• 1:23:56
  What would be that one lesson out of your whole career, all your work that you want to,
• 1:24:00
  you want to let people know it's the most important lesson that you've ever learned?
• 1:24:06
  Man, that's tough. That's a tough question. It's a tough question.
• 1:24:09
  Can I give you three?
• 1:24:10
  Yeah, go ahead, since you can.
• 1:24:13
  So our first lesson is find your purpose. Whatever it is.
• 1:24:18
  And, you know, that's something I have two kids,
• 1:24:24
  beautiful son, beautiful daughter and, you know, they're both graduated from college and
• 1:24:30
  out in the world. And from a very early age, my encouragement to them was find your purpose.
• 1:24:36
  And if you find your purpose, your life will be blessed. And for me, I was just very lucky
• 1:24:43
  at a very young age to find my purpose, which was helping farmers and workers lead a better life.
• 1:24:51
  And that's kind of led me from, you know, here to Nicaragua and back again. And it's really a blessing
• 1:25:04
  to get to do something that feels uplifting and valuable for the world. And so I just,
• 1:25:14
  I feel very fortunate to have found my purpose. And I think that's the most important thing,
• 1:25:19
  important advice that I could give anyone. Secondly,
• 1:25:26
  business can and must be a force for good.
• 1:25:34
  Business cannot sit on the sidelines in the face of climate change and global poverty and all
• 1:25:39
  the problems. Business has to be a part of the solution. And especially if government is going to
• 1:25:44
  opt out of being the solution, business needs to step up. And, you know, again, it's such a blessing
• 1:25:50
  for me to be part of this conscious capitalism movement and to get to work with amazing companies
• 1:25:57
  that are proving that business can be both successful and sustainable and helpful for the world.
• 1:26:06
  So that's my second key message. And, and, you know, by the way, not every business is there.
• 1:26:16
  Right. So it's a journey. It's a long arc. But we are bending towards justice. We are
• 1:26:22
  bending towards sustainability and business is helping us get there. And I'm grateful for that.
• 1:26:27
  The third thing I would say is this, we touched on it a minute ago.
• 1:26:34
  As individuals, you and I can make a difference even in the face of huge problems. And,
• 1:26:42
  you know, that, that difference we can make by, you know, what we do at work or what we do in our
• 1:26:49
  spare time, the causes that we volunteer for, the things that we donate money to. But it,
• 1:26:57
  it's also possible to make a difference every time we go to the store.
• 1:27:04
  And this is my key message in my book, every purchase matters. Every time we go to the store,
• 1:27:09
  every time we go online and buy something, we have a chance to choose a more sustainable product
• 1:27:15
  that's good for people and that's good for the planet. And, you know, I just, I feel like right now,
• 1:27:20
  so many people feel powerless. And I want to encourage everyone to feel your power.
• 1:27:28
  Because you do have the voice and the power to make a difference.
• 1:27:32
  Truth on something as simple as a cup of coffee. Or, you know, a t-shirt or a banana, you can reach
• 1:27:38
  halfway across the world and express your grace and goodwill to farmers and their families and
• 1:27:45
  their kids.