How to be Good - merging Fairtrade labelling and institutional trust models of governance to regulate cotton clothing
By Will Low and Eileen Davenport
This paper discusses the fair trade movement and the anti-sweatshop movement, and examines their different approaches to advocating for the human rights of Southern workers and producers. The anti-sweatshop movement has been successful in telling consumers what not to buy without offering a positive alternative. The Fair Trade movement uses two approaches of private regulation to influence producers and consumers: a strategy of selling labelled food products and a system of based on creating a set of institutional trust relationships along the supply chain. A Fairtrade label for cotton seed has been developed which extends the system of private authority to part of the cotton clothing value chain. The rise of labelling initiative is discussed using Castells' Network Society model. Finally, we argue that an institutional trust model is developing because of the challenges of marketing and retailing of ethical clothing through mainstream channels.
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