[p2p-research] transparent trade

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Steve, thanks for your interesting blog comment on Kevin's article on
voluntary certification,

would it be possible to write up a little intro on transparent trade, to
introduce our blog readers to this new practice?

(or to send us links is you don't have the time)

Michel



Kevin, this was a particularly interesting essay. Five years ago, I did a
serious analysis of the fair-trade system, and found it to be lacking. In
its place, I decided the thing to create was a mutual certification system
made up of a rotating and volunteer committee of distributors, consumers,
and even competitors, who would make frequent site visits to each other. As
it turned out, that was too ambitious to pull off. So, in its place, I
founded Just Things, as the next-best way to connect producers and
consumers. Unfortunately, I was only able to keep that going for a year.
Still, I’m very interested in such things.

The best example I know of this model right now is my friends at Just
Coffee. They are promoting what they call “transparent trade,” in which they
essentially have no trade secrets. They publish their supplier contracts,
profit-and-loss statements, and more on their website, justcoffee.coop. I
see this as a proactive reputation system, or a consumer certification
system. And… it’s been very successful for them.


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