Fair trade, but hardly carbon-neutral?
It was Mrs Woolforbrain’s birthday yesterday so, whilst in the local Sainsbury’s buying a card and a bottle of wine, I looked around for some flowers. After much deliberation, I picked up a bunch of nice looking cut roses with a FairTrade logo on the wrapping.
Then, I looked in more detail at the labelling.
Cut Roses.
Product of Nigeria.
There is no way I could justify a bunch of cut flowers shipped all the way from b****y Nigeria by air for any purpose, birthday or not. Just because it’s FairTrade branded doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a ‘Good Thing’, especially if one considers the environmental impact.
I still bought flowers, but I bought ones grown in the UK. They weren’t as nice but it didn’t hurt my conscience as much.
Before anyone asks, the wine was Australian, but I feel less guilty because we don’t have the range of wines available to us produced natively.
Ok, call me a hypocrite.
