Fair for Life – a Successful Fair Trade Certification Program Celebrates its Third Anniversary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 22, 2009 -- September 21, 2009 – Exactly three years ago, in September 2006, a new Social and
Fair Trade Program was launched by the Swiss Bio-Foundation, in cooperation with the
Institute for Marketecology (IMO): Fair for Life. It all started with a handful of relatively
small but dedicated companies and their supply chains, who set off to establish a fair
trade certification program that would work independent of the traditional FLO / Transfair
Fairtrade system. This new certification program created an opportunity for all serious

fair trade producers and products that had not previously been eligible for fair trade
certification.

Three years ago - A pioneering effort ...
While hundreds of companies and organizations operated with in-house fair trade
programs without having them certified by a third party, there was a pioneering effort in
the fair trade movement to develop a certification system that could open the fast
growing fair trade market to all types of natural products. It was thought that this
certification should work for all types of production systems, and push the existing fair

trade envelope by going beyond what already existed. Hence, the name: Fair for Life.
From the very beginning, ‘Life’ was in the center of the new program: improving the lives
and livelihoods of marginalized producers on all continents, in all societies and in all
industries where such marginalization occurs. But ‘Life’ is no privilege of humans;
meaningful consideration of the lives of animals and plants as well as their habitats is
part of the environmental criteria of Fair for Life, as symbolized by the label’s twin leaf.

... Today - A powerful movement

“Fair for Life allowed a new view on fair trade by taking a closer look at the supply chains
of a product, from production to processing, trade and sales”, explains Dr. Rainer Bächi,
director of IMO. ”While initially this was an experiment undertaken by IMO and the Bio-
Foundation, the program has since become part of a powerful movement.” Fair for Life
opened fair trade certification to many new producers and widened the traditional fair
trade definitions, by providing a stringent standard and certification system that is free of
political, religious or economic preferences and that has ‘Life’ in its heart.

Certification by a flexible but stringent and transparent program
While Fair for Life’s comprehensiveness and flexibility are characteristics well
appreciated by clients, the program’s rigor and stringency in implementation certainly
were a challenge for many operators. Although certification from Year One is not an
easy goal because of Fair for Life’s detailed requirements on social responsibility, health
and safety, working conditions and fair relationships between partners in the trade chain,
many producers, traders and buyers worked hard and ultimately succeeded in complying

with the requirements and obtaining certification.

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