The Fairtrade Foundation works to improve the lives of poor and marginalised farmers in over 60 developing countries, by seeking to transform trading structures and practices in their favour.
Impetus support package:
Impetus investment period: 2008 - 2013
Grant funding: £400,000
Pro bono services donated:
£770,000
Investment management value: £166k
Total funding package to date: £1.3m
Fairtrade is part of the Impetus Economic Disadvantage Portfolio.
Background to the investment:
With the immensely successful Fairtrade movement gaining momentum in the UK and the increasing need in the developing world to address conventional trade failure, the Foundation came to Impetus for support. We hoped that by bringing in additional business expertise we could help the Foundation to clarify its vision for growth and distil it into an actionable strategy.
Focus of Impetus expertise 2010/11:
- Active participation on the Fairtrade Executive Committee
- Support with Fairtrade's investment proposition and introduction to other social investors
- Strategic review of Fairtrade in
the US.
Key achievements 2010/11:
- Retail sales for Fairtrade in the UK crossed the historic £1 billion mark in 2010 to £1.17m, up 40% from 2009 sales of £840m. (The principal component of income to the Fairtrade Foundation is license fees paid by companies carrying the FAIRTRADE Mark on their products.)
- The world's first Fairtrade and Fairmined gold went on sale in
the UK on 14 February 2011 in
a groundbreaking effort to secure a fair deal for gold miners and their communities - New and/or significant extension of existing corporate commitments for 2011 include: The Co-operative, Topshop, Waitrose, M&S, Aldi, and the spice-and-herb company Schwartz
- Won the HSBC-sponsored European Business Award 2010 in the Corporate Sustainability category.
Find out more about Fairtrade Foundation and how it has helped
South African Josephine Witbooi better her life.
Fairtrade photos on this website are courtesy of Simon Rawles, Annette Kay and Fairtrade Foundation.
| Year prior to Impetus investment 2007 |
Latest year end 2010 |
|
| Income (in millions) | £6.46 | £10.93 |
| No. of Fairtrade certified producer groups supplying the UK market* | 426 | 560 |
*Due to difficulty in calculating the number of individual farmers and their families helped by Fairtrade, we use the number of producer groups as the measure of people helped. The actual number of people whose lives are being turned around as a result of Fairtrade's work is far greater.
The relationship has helped us raise our game. As a result, our strategy is bolder and our stakeholders are extremely excited about where this process is taking us.
Harriet Lamb
Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation