Fair Trade refers to a social movement that is organised with a market based approach to assist producers in developing nations and encourage sustainability. In this system, workers are provided employment opportunities and living wages for their work.
The artisans or producers work in partnership with International groups that help them develop their skills and market and sell products that could range from crafts to agricultural produce. The Fair Trade movement promotes social and environmental standards and its focus tends to be on exports of handicrafts, coffee, sugar, tea, honey, cotton, wine, flowers etc. from developing countries to developed ones.
Fair Trade goods are required to be certified by bodies like Fair Trade Labelling Organisation and many criteria are required to be met like encouragement of sustainable production techniques; equal employment opportunities for all and forced labour and exploitative child labour being condemned to name a few.
The Ericsson group has always been keen on corporate social responsibility tools and post the joint venture Sony Ericsson takes on the trademark of watching out for the environment. The GreenHeart initiative launched in 2009, highlights all GreeHeart products in which the unique feature is environmental innovation like recycled plastics, water based paints, super efficient chargers and environmental applications.
The latest green gadget in this category creating a buzz is the Naite. With its recycled packaging, efficient charger, incredible battery life, lead free, eco friendly handset and green application features like the Ecomate, in addition to being the most cost effective in the GreenHeart this cool gadget has several green takers.
The concept of Factor 4 was introduced in a book written by L. Hunter Lovins and Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute and Ernst von Weizacker of the Wuppertal institute for Climate, Environment and Energy in 1998.
The book presented the concept as an easy means for businesses to achieve four times the efficiency of energy use and materials without the use of new technologies and also presented examples of projects that have saved money and at the same time reduced pollution.
Factor 4 efficiency gains can also be phrased as a reduction of energy and materials by 75%. Its goal is to be twice as productive with half the resources or productivity using 1/4th the material and energy or 4 times as effective with the same resources.
Factor 10 refers to either being 10 times more productive with half the materials and energy which leads to an efficiency improvement of factor 10 or processes that are productive in spite of using just 10% of the resources. In essence, Factor 10 refers to an ability to create services and products with lower resource requirement than conventional methods. The evolution of the concept came from the Factor 4 ideals developed at the Wuppertal institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. Factor 10 works as a good tool to identify dematerialization while monitoring performance of business. Factor 10 efficiency gains can also be phrased as a reduction of energy and materials by 90%.
