THE INNOVATION OF THE FAIR TRADE MOVEMENT TO FOSTER SUSTAINABILITY AIMS

Much of the awareness in society towards sustainable development objectives has been fostered by United Nations (UN) programmes, non-governmental organisations and social movements they have inspired. Within the stream of social change occurred after the second world war, fair trade initiative innovated as a social movement by offering an international trade model to make difference in producers’ lives. Mainstream fair trade organisations carried social responsibility values of addressing targets such as poverty alleviation; reducing market inequalities North-South; protecting environment; enabling fair work conditions; promoting responsible consumption and production; ensuring food security. Given these objectives, fair trade movement can be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by UN in 2015; and with the triple bottom line of sustainability. Those synergies can be demonstrated across fair trade organisations’ social responsibility and sustainability reports. Materials and methods of this paper included a review of the corporate social responsibility and sustainability reports of the mainstream fair trade organisations from 2000 to date. Findings show a consistency among terms common to the fair trade reported aims and the SDGs. A comparative analysis indicates the spectrum of sustainability topics progressively addressed by the fair trade movement since at least 2000. This review may contribute to guide government policies and socially focused businesses to foster sustainability goals through innovations within food systems, to attain a sustainable agriculture and rural development.


ABSTRACT
Much of the awareness in society towards sustainable development objectives has been fostered by United Nations (UN) programmes, non-governmental organisations and social movements they have inspired. Within the stream of social change occurred after the second world war, fair trade initiative innovated as a social movement by offering an international trade model to make difference in producers' lives. Mainstream fair trade organisations carried social responsibility values of addressing targets such as poverty alleviation; reducing market inequalities North-South; protecting environment; enabling fair work conditions; promoting responsible consumption and production; ensuring food security. Given these objectives, fair trade movement can be aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by UN in 2015; and with the triple bottom line of sustainability. Those synergies can be demonstrated across fair trade organisations' social responsibility and sustainability reports. Materials and methods of this paper included a review of the corporate social responsibility and sustainability reports of the mainstream fair trade organisations from 2000 to date. Findings show a consistency among terms common to the fair trade reported aims and the SDGs. A comparative analysis indicates the spectrum of sustainability topics progressively addressed by the fair trade movement since at least 2000. This review may contribute to guide government policies and socially focused businesses to foster sustainability goals through innovations within food systems, to attain a sustainable agriculture and rural development.

INTRODUCTION
Much of the awareness in society towards sustainable development objectives has been fostered by United Nations (UN) programmes, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and several social movements they have inspired. Changes in citizens' mindset and behaviour relating to sustainability practices grew out of earlier fears about nuclear weapons use, and concerns of environmental impacts caused by the overuse of agricultural chemicals from the 1960s onwards (Lutts, 1985). "challenges the conventional model of trade and offers a progressive alternative for a sustainable future" (FF, 2001, p. 13). This definition is unfolded into the conception that "Fairtrade changes the way trade works through better prices, decent work conditions and a fairer deal for farmers and workers in developing countries" (FLO, 2016-2017, p.

5).
As confirmed by Fairtrade International: "Fairtrade's unique holistic approach to sustainability carefully balances the long-term economic, environmental and social conditions faced by farmers and workers" (FLO, 2010(FLO, -2011. This sustainability approach can be seen in line with Baumgartner's perspective about sustainable development when the author states that "sustainable development is about enhancing the possibilities for improvement in the quality of life for all people on the planet and is about respecting and living within the limits of ecosystems" (Baumgartner, 2011, p. 785). This wave of change accrued support from consumers, who have found an accessible channel to express their values and concerns.
A sign of the wide support to ethical consumerism can be seen, for instance, in a 2015 survey of consumer behaviour undertaken worldwide. This survey found that 76% of 28,000 consumers from all continents responded that in their opinion "brands and companies have to be environmentally responsible" (   The reports based exclusively on national initiatives were not included in this review as they could bias the results or replicate some findings, given that FLO and WFTO already include a great number of national organisations membership. And data for different countries already appear in the global and general reports. The same criterium applies for non-selection of case studies given that findings from such source could replicate the same initiatives across different documents. Hence, they were out of the scope of the present article. The intent was to map the appearance of SDG topics throughout fair trade global reports along the years.

RESULTS
Data collected for this preliminary analysis demonstrates that topics which are addressed by the 17 SDGs somehow have been considered by Fairtrade and fair trade organisations in various forms since 2000. Results pointed out that there is a relation between terms common to the Fairtrade and fair trade reported aims or principles and UN SDG targets as well as the previous UN Millennium Goals. As the term SDG was not coined nor released before 2015, it cannot be stated that the terms are the same or consistent to reports released in the early 2000's. But the keywords and associated terms (refer to Table 2) that each SDG encompasses were found since 2000 throughout the reports analysed. Considering the total period each fair trade organisation provided reports, the graph as per figure 1 shows how often each SDG and the associated terms (as per table 2) was addressed or referred to.

DISCUSSION
Given that the majority of fair trade commodities are foods, and due to the stringent requirements of the ethical production and consumption model proposed by fair trade, their standards can work as a framework for agriculture and rural development (Ribeiro-Duthie, 2019). Hence, contribute to avoid rural exodus caused by unemploymenta common challenge of remote localities in least developed and developing countries. This can be enabled through partnerships for sustainable development with government agency, UN, NGOs, producers' networks, and private companies. This is clearly recognised by FF and WFTO as per figure 1.
Data on fair trade production was compiled and they show outcomes on a range of the SDGs, such as higher income associated to improvement in livelihoods and empowerment of small-scale farmers from developing countries. The extension of those outcomes to attain social change requires further assessment. Future directions for investigation points towards the need for longitudinal impact assessment studies of the fair trade movement to analyse how the sustainable development actions have been attained to date. However, it is of note that some literature on fair trade has been exploring signs of impacts and outcomes of the movement. According to some scholars, "there is considerable potential for government to support companies' efforts to be more responsible and thereby increase consumption of products with ethical characteristics" (Tallontire, Rentsendorj & Blowfield, 2001, p. 27). Other authors highlighted the role of government to support small farmers capacity for rice production, thus attaining fair trade requirements and its potential benefits (Makita & Tsuruta, 2017;Carlisle, 2016;Udomkit & Winnett, 2002). Reflection on the possible roles of the fair trade movement may contribute for designing and decision-making processes in regard to private and public policies.
On the other hand, the trend initiated within the fair trade movement in the last decade of approaching large scale businesses to mainstream the fair trade movement is analysed by some authors as a potential paradox. Such relations may threaten the original fair trade proposal of addressing inequalities and empowerment of small scale producers in a fair trade relation. Whether the fair trade scheme related to food production and distribution is taken as a model for rural and agriculture development, due diligence is necessary given the risks of dilution of the original innovative proposal of fair trade for reducing inequalities North-South through trade relations (Le Mare, 2008;Moore, 2004;Renard, 2003;Redfern & Snedkern, 2002). In our perspective, the same stringency applied to small-scale farmers must be required from large corporations that the fair trade movement is dealing with to gain larger markets. Therefore, drawing from the previous analysis about risks of mainstreaming fair trade, we recommend not bypassing robust ethical standards to facilitate support from large corporations; and keeping transparency. Fairtrade has sold itself as a fair alternative to least developed and developing countries that were being punished by protectionism of developed economies (FLO 2004(FLO -2005. This approach raised obstacles for fairer trade agreements with potential to pave pathways for sustainable development.
Nowadays, one of the targets of the SGG 10 set by UN is expressed at the "zero tariff access for export". It appears that the power relations in trade have chances to be balanced and the potential for social change of fair trade cannot be lessened. which was out of the scope of the present study. It seems that further study on the standards approaches of fair trade from inside the movementfor instance comparing FLO and WFTOcould clarify governance aspects. Still, this preliminary study considered CSR and annual reports as barometers to indicate the organisation's focus and targets towards sustainable development.
A final answer on how sustainable is the fair trade model requires further impact assessment and long-term research. It also requires including the myriad of fair trade organisations that have joined the movement. The present challenge appears to be how to grow assuring the innovation to developing and developed economies, assuring better standards, better prices, fair trade relations and agreements, keep the interest of great traders without exacerbating damage to environment nor to the small producers. While it may sound an ambitious agenda, they are in line with the foundational stated aims of this alternative trade model all along their social responsibility, financial and sustainability reports reviewed and analysed in this study. The last decade trend on the strategies for mainstreaming fair tradewhich is to also include and deal with large scale businessesdeserves a word of caution for the risks of dilution of the fair trade's original proposal, as some authors already highlighted. Still, government policymakers may draw from the fair trade framework to attain development within a sustainability paradigm system. In this sense, reviewing fair trade schemes can contribute to inspire government policies, socially focused businesses, and social enterprises, thus contributing to design models that will foster the UN set goals for sustainable development. It may also add to innovation in food systems and the nexus of impacts on water and energy use. Future direction suggested is strengthening the dialogue with Circular Economy principles, especially looking at alternatives to design out waste and generate energy in a sustainable way, thus improving the environmental footprint of food systems. The innovation of the fair