In Paris last week, the Fairtrade Foundation was awarded the 2010 European Business Award for Corporate Sustainability.
The Fairtrade Foundation came top of its category by demonstrating its company-wide commitment to corporate sustainability and its impact on global communities.
Earlier in the month, the Fairtrade Foundation hit back at a report from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) suggesting that Fairtrade did not offer a long-term strategy for development and did not concentrate on the poorest countries.
'Some 95 per cent of Mali children of farmers belonging to Fairtrade Organic cooperatives go to school because farming communities receive more money,' the organisation stated. 'This is more than double the national average in the fourth most deprived nation on earth. Increasing access to education is well recognised as one of the most effective investments in any country’s long-term development.'
The Fairtrade Foundation also spoke out against the European Commission’s proposals to maintain trade-distorting subsidies, which the former said had catastrophic effects for West African farmers.
Legislation to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is set to be voted on in June 2011.
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