The 23rd February 2009 marks the beginning of Fairtrade Fortnight instigated by the UK’s Fairtrade Foundation. This annual series of events provides an opportunity to go the extra mile to promote Fairtrade with events happening all over the country. The UK Energy Saving website includes information on Fairtrade, and Fairtrade Fortnight has been promoted on their blog at http://uk-energy-saving.blogspot.com.

The aim of Fairtrade Fortnight is to raise awareness of this important cause. Unfair trading leaves billions of producers worldwide in situations of often desperate poverty, a plight which the Fairtrade movement addresses with minimum prices for produce along with a Fairtrade premium designed for investment into community areas such as education and healthcare. Millions of lives have already been drastically improved thanks to Fairtrade and we can all do our bit to continue this movement.

Hayley Jones, Web Marketing Director at www.uk-energy-saving.com, explains why they promote Fairtrade on their website. “In our modern society it can be very easy not to think about where many items we take for granted come from. Produce such as coffee, tea, fruit and cotton are so commonplace that it does not always occur to us to consider whether the producer, often in a developing country, at the bottom of the supply chain is getting a fair deal for their produce. Fairtrade certification provides an excellent way of guaranteeing that a fair price has been paid for what we buy, and is therefore an important part of living ethically.”

The UK Energy Saving websites dedicates a section of its website to Fairtrade and this can be visited at http://www.uk-energy-saving.com/fairtrade.html. For more information on this month’s Fairtrade Fortnight visit the Fairtrade Foundation website at www.fairtrade.org.uk.