labels
There exist several labels equitable trade each one being attached at an organization of homologation which checks all the stages of the production process in order to ensure the conformity of the product the principles of the equitable trade.
Jungle of the logos and lables: How to find itself there?
The equitable trade is an economic step in full rise. The logos, the offers, the places of distribution, and the shelves in large surfaces as in specialized stores in the equitable trade multiply. For the consumers, the absence of public label can make more complex the product purchase resulting from the equitable trade.
How to recognize them? How to distinguish the products which answer effective practices of equitable trade of those which take again only the name of it?
What concerns the equitable trade (and thus what isn't)? The question agitated the organizations of the sector since the Sixties. In 2002, they had finally gotten along on a joint definition to the international level. But this text does not have the force of law: it concerns simply an agreement between private actors. An increasingly unsatisfactory situation taking into consideration increasing economic weight of this activity. Click here for a beginning of explanation.

What is what a guarantee scheme?
One calls guaranteed a system which aims to ensure that facts and practices are in conformity with values and principles, whatever the means and the initiators of such a step.
These principles are generally registered in a schedule of conditions or a reference frame. The checking of conformity can be realized by an external organization (external certification) but also be integrated within an organization (internal audit).
The two approaches are generally cumulated because complementary. From a strictly legal point of view, the use of the word “label” in France indicates a schedule of conditions which belongs to the public authorities (a public standard) and which is controlled by certification body accredited by the COFRAC, the French committee of accreditation. It is the case for example label AB (Organic farming) or Rouge label.
As regards equitable trade, no reference frame is the property of the public authorities. There exists on the other hand a plurality of reference frames deprived with various logos and marks referring to the equitable trade. It is in this context that the law of August 2, 2005 announces the creation of a National Commission of the Equitable trade (CNCE) which will come to recognize various guarantee schemes of equitable trade. It will thus not be a question of setting up a label of state of equitable trade but a public recognition of private reference frames of equitable trade.

How to distinguish them?

Various approaches as regards guarantee

One generally distinguishes three types of guarantee in the equitable trade: the guarantee which relates to a product, the guarantee which relates to an organization and the guarantee which relates to the whole of a die.
These three approaches evolve/move unceasingly and are often confused. However, several elements make it possible to distinguish them.
- Guarantee produced
This guarantee is generally most known because it is directly visible on the product by the consumer through the affixing of a logo (FLO, Ecocert, Bioéquitable). It relates to primarily the sector of the agricultural produce (coffee, chocolate, sugar, banana, the, rice, honey, fruit juice, spices and cotton) and the schedules of conditions are defined by product.
The process of conformity control is carried out in several stages:
- Near the organizations of producers, the organization of control regularly checks the good application of the schedule of conditions (fair price, prefinancing, respect of conventions of ILO, etc) what gives place or not to the right to be reproduced on the lists of equitable certified producers.
- On the level of the companies of importation, transformation and distribution, the organization checks that the companies buy and resell well the equitable matters certified, which gives them the right to use the logo or the mark of the guarantee scheme on the product. This right of use of the logo is generally granted n the other hand royalty.
-  The guarantee organization
The guarantee of the organizations is rather related on the historical construction of the equitable trade and the exchange of artisanal products. It applies to structures whose principal activity is the equitable trade. In this case, the reference frame contains engagements of the organization and the checking relates to its effective practices.
To the international level, the guarantee organization is carried by the IFAT (International Federation for Alternative Trade) who gathers organizations of equitable trade (OCE) on the whole of the dies, of the production until the distribution.
The respect of the schedule of conditions of the IFAT gives right to the use of the logo FTO (Fair Trade Organization) which will be affixed on the communications tools of the structure. In term of implementation, guarantee IFAT is based on three complementary models of checking: the autoevaluation, the evaluation by the other members of the IFAT and the external checking carried out by listeners accredited by the IFAT.
- The guarantee die
The guarantee die guarantees that the whole of the stages of production of a product are in conformity with the equitable conditions. It is about a step of progress and to date, label “STEP” in guaranteed Switzerland the equitable character of the whole of the production process of carpet.
In France, Minga association sets up a Participative Guarantee Scheme (SGP) which aims at guaranteeing that the whole of the actors of a die respect strictly the schedule of conditions of association. 
Source: Trade transparency

 

 


Logo 1

Logo 2

Logos of the EC analyzed by the Politis newspaper
The Politis magazine carried out a very powerful analysis of the most known logos of the equitable trade.
Very interesting and very intructif.

Click sour each logo Ci to open these files with format pdf against.

Under the pseudonym of Multatuli (” I suffered much” in Latin), Edouard Douwes Dekker forged the Max Havelaar hero in 1860. Yell resounding in the Netherlands, this novel is the first to denounce an unjust commercial system which overpowers 30 million Javanese (colony Dutchwoman at the time). It is through Max Havelaar that Douwes Dekker tells the combat of Robin of the Wood which fights against the oppression of the peasants of Indonesia.
It is of this noble history that the name came from association. Association as for it was created into 1988 in the Netherlands for then coming to settle in France in 1992.
Max Havelaar occupies a dominant position today, with a logo affixed on the three quarters of the equitable products.
Max Havelaar is an international solidarity association which represents the international movement Fairtrade. Its goal: to use the trade to allow peasants and employees of the southern hemisphere of living of their work, in all autonomy.

 Max Havelaar
Platform of the Equitable trade The Platform of the Equitable trade: Created in 1997, the PFCE gathers the historical actors of the equitable trade which they are distributors (Craftsmen of the World), labellisateurs (Max Havelaar), importers or structures of solidarity (Handicap International). National collective of exchanges and promotion of the equitable trade equipped with about thirty organizations, the PFCE does not affix any logo, labellise not the products, but the active members must sign a demanding charter.
Minga (association for the development of an equitable trade): Minga is an association created into 1999 which has as an aim the promotion of the equitable trade like economic step of citizenship. Composed of a hundred of particular members and organizations, Minga worked out one of the most demanding charters supporting equity in all the economic exchanges (and not only between North and the South) and throughout the die (of the producer to the customer).

Minga
Step label The Step label applies to the products in the sector of the carpet. 20 stores of sale of carpet are labellisés in France.
Since January 1, 2007 label STEP is managed as an autonomous commercial unit within the Foundation Max Havelaar (Switzerland)
Bioéquitable, created in 2002 is the principal label on the French market. It joins together Small and medium-size companies of the sector agrobiologic and relates to the raw materials like the cocoa, cotton, rice, etc This logo commercial is recognized by the DGCCRF since it is allotted starting from expertises carried out by an independent organism and is accredited by the State, ECOCERT. The associated costs with the checking Bio Equitable are dealt with by the companies which affix the logo on their products. BioEquitable
Alter Eco The methodology of Alter Eco (FTA 200) is applied by this company when the Max Havelaar label does not exist on a product that Alter Eco wishes to market.
Installation with the cabinet of audit PricewaterhouseCoopers (which appraises in particular the productions according to standard SA 8000), this methodology of audits evaluates the economic, social and environmental risks of the projects of the producers, the co-operatives, and the exporters on 200 points.
To print

labels

Juridically, there is no label equitable trade, even if Max Havelaar is defined as tel. There exists a “agreement of reference” (AFNOR, January 2006) which is a code of conduct of those which make equitable trade. In 2005 was to be created the CNCE (National Commission of the Equitable trade), structure taking care of the respect of the conditions of the equitable trade and thus proposing guarantee schemes but it was still not created.


The PFCE carried out a memorandum on the guarantee schemes which are 9 but none is better than the others and there is no officialization of these systems