Labour Councillor for Westbourne, Carmen Appich, on Brighton & Hove as a Fairtrade city and the work that local organisation Fair Trade Brighton & Hove are doing:

We are a Fairtrade city with an impressive range of local shops and businesses which actively support Fair Trade partnerships with producers around the world. Fair Trade Brighton and Hove are proud of our innovative approach to promoting Fair Trade across the city.

We did the following over Fair Trade fortnight in March:

• Twinned with the Rwenzori Sustainable Trade Centre (RSTC) in Western Uganda which works with Fairtrade coffee, cocoa and cotton farmers to facilitate their trade links with premium and fully traceable end. We aim to support the promotion of the consumption of Fair Trade products by conscious consumers in our great city. RSTC is promoting Business to Business relationships (B2B) and looks forward to forging partnerships with Brighton & Hove -based coffee roasters.
• Hosted “Fair city, fair trade, fair world” an event with keynote speaker Matt Oliver from Traidcraft, as well as local fair trade businesses
• Universities:  held a Q and A on fair trade organised by  students of Sussex Uni with participation form across the country
• A Fairtrade family cooking competition (“Brighton and Homebakes”) which was huge fun and increased local awareness of Fair Trade.

This week, we have  fashion revolution week, with the theme of “who made my clothes”, focusing on fair and local  production and recycling. For more information, please go to the link below:

Fashion Revolution Week | Fairtrade Foundation

Personally, I am today wearing a shirt made in Brighton by Gender Free World (GFW), and purchased in their shop in Portland Road in my ward. Couldn’t really be much more local….

On 8^th May it’s World Fair Trade Day, which will have the theme of “Build Back Fairer” – if  we return to business as usual, we will end up with  spiralling inequality and  a worsening climate crisis. There is another choice,  so we will  call on the citizens of our world to join us to demand we #BuildBackFairer.

I’m also excited to tell everyone that the Council is working on a food standard for the city which will include fair trade ingredients!

Carmen is our Labour and Co-operative Councillor for Westbourne ward and chairs the local Fair Trade steering group – get in touch if you’d like to be involved!

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Image: Fair Trade Brighton & Hove