Million Dollar Moms: Purchasing With A Purpose

Posted on: Monday, August 4th, 2008
Comments: 0

Ted Ning is the Director of the LOHAS Conference and Executive Editor of the LOHAS Journal. LOHAS is an organization that is working hard to encourage business leaders to be more responsive to the needs of socially-conscious consumers. Hi Ted, welcome.

 

TN: Hi Kemi, thank you for having me.

 

RM: Now Ted, I would consider myself to be a fairly active LOHASian, but I would imagine that there would be a lot of moms out there that are not familiar with the acronym. What is LOHAS and what exactly is a LOHASian?

 

TN: Well, it is a concept that really identifies the market that serves conscious consumers. This consumer base is really identified as being about 50 million people, but a lot of these people have no idea that they are identified as such, and it’s really more of a “psycho-graphic” identification as opposed to something that is very concrete, such as age, gender, and income bracket.

 

RM: Okay, and LOHAS—the letters stand for what, exactly?

 

TN: LOHAS is an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability. What it is is broken down into… it talks about the market that I said before serves conscious consumers. We’ve identified that market as being a $227 billion market.

 

RM: So moms who, let’s say, purchase eco-friendly diapers or organic, pesticide-free baby food, these moms would be considered LOHASian?

 

TN: Absolutely. These are people who want to buy things that are in line with their values and are looking at products from a holistic point of view rather than just a “Is this the cheapest product I can find?” type of value.

 

A typical day in the life of a so-called LOHASian, would be something like this: They wake up in the morning. They maybe do some contemplation or meditation, do some yoga, perhaps. Then if they are a mother, they perhaps feed their children with organic foods. They are very aware of their kids’ education. They are involved with their children. They would drive their children to school in a hybrid vehicle and then maybe perhaps pick up a coffee from a coffee shop that would be Fair Trade and listen to NPR and be involved in a lot of social activities that serve the community as well as their children’s development.

 

RM: That certainly sounds like a lot of holistic moms. Now Ted, one of the things we are committed to here is empowering mothers by providing them with the information they need to make better, more-informed purchasing decisions for their families. In your work with the business community, how responsive have you found companies to be to the expressed desires of socially-conscious consumers?

 

TN: I think this is a new and growing concern for a lot of businesses. Clearly, with the changing landscape as it is today, with global warming being in the forefront, gas prices as being as high as they are, the current issues with obesity, there are many companies now who are taking much more of a proactive approach to this than being reactive to what is going on and being kind of behind the eight ball. So I think a lot of different companies are very interested in engaging these types of consumers.

 

RM: I recently had an opportunity to speak with Nancy Massotto, the founder and director of the Holistic Moms Network. One of the things that we talked about was the sheer diversity of the “holistic passions”, if you will. Do you mind sharing some of the research you have found or complied regarding market segmentation and the specific interests of conscious consumers? I mean, are all LOHASians the same?

 

TN: No, no. Like I said, it’s more of an identification of a psycho-graphic behavior rather than trends in terms of gender and income brackets and education and such. This is a type of belief that is held by a lot of different people, whether it is location, race, and all different kinds of things. So in terms of them, it is really something that these types of consumers are very, very interested in, putting their values in front of their purchasing process and purchasing decisions.

 

For example: There are people and products out there that are looking for a connection. The consumers are really looking for more of a holistic, worldly value placed into it. If there is a company that provides something of the story of their product and how they serve the environment, how they serve a smaller farm or a smaller sourcing community; that is something that is very important for these types of consumers.

 

RM: A recent study carried out by Nielsen, I believe, revealed that 85% of the time, moms were responsible for making the purchasing decisions in the family. In other words, moms have quite a bit of purchasing power. So Ted, what are some of the things that your organization is doing to encourage businesses to take seriously our desire for organic, eco-friendly and fairly-traded products? How does LOHAS work?

 

TN: Well, the ironic thing is that there are these different companies in different market sectors that are doing the same community, same consumer, but they are not talking to each other. For example, the solar company is not talking to the yoga company, who is not talking to the organic foods company, who is not talking to the aroma-therapist, acupuncturist or the spa. These are places their consumers all go to. All of these markets sectors are targeting the same consumer, yet the communication between these has not really developed as such as that it would be prevalent or really profitable for businesses. What we are trying to do is really promote the fact that you can be sustainable, can be healthy, and also provide a successful business model, as well as creating strategic relations within the different market sectors that create LOHAS.

 

RM: Great. So you have an annual conference and you publish a journal.

 

TN: Yes. The way we do this is we provide a lot of information on our website at www.lohas.com. We also have an annual business executive event in which we have high-end business executives come, as well as prominent media, to really strategize and expand LOHAS as a market. We also have our LOHAS Journal, in which we are able to provide some data and resources for businesses and individuals who are interested in getting involved in LOHAS and learning more about LOHAS business practices.

 

RM: Well that’s fantastic! Hopefully we’ll see more green, fairly-traded products into the market and hopefully we’ll begin to think seriously about social responsibility.

 

TN: I hope so.

 

RM: Well, Ted, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been great having you on.

 

TN: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

 

…

 

I’m here with Mary Morrison of the Fair Trade Resource Network. So Mary, what exactly is the Fair Trade Resource Network and how did it start?

 

MM: We are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and we started in about 1999. The Fair Trade Federation, the organization I mentioned earlier, really is about supporting Fair Trade businesses. They are trade organization, so that is another federal-type of designation. The consumer education piece was what was missing, and so some people got together and said, “Let’s just focus on Fair Trade education” and so that’s how FTRN was born.

 

RM: Are there any pressing policy issues right now, for example, that our listeners should be made aware of?

 

MM: We are primarily dedicated to education as far as schools and consumers and businesses, so we are not involved in policy issues, per se, so I can’t really answer that question specifically. But our mission is really about organizing, creating and disseminating Fair Trade information so people can feel empowered, be empowered, actually talk with others about what Fair Trade is and act upon purchasing Fair Trade products. It’s actually about acting upon one’s values, what we say we believe in, and getting them to match them.

 

RM: Okay. So what are some of the things that the Network is doing to try and make trade fair?

 

MM: Great! One of our, I guess you would say, core competencies is creating publications. We actually have a couple. There’s “The Conscious Consumer: Promoting Economic Justice Through Fair Trade”, which is available on our website. We also have another publication called “The Retailer’s Guide.” That one is all about how to set up a Fair Trade business. “The Conscious Consumer” is all about: What is Fair Trade? You hear a lot, what is it? We actively go out and distribute that information. There are actually fund raisers involved. They are not very expensive publications, and it is something that for a nominal fee you can buy from our website or on Amazon.

 

We’re also the organizer for World Fair Trade Day. World Fair Trade Day started in Europe and we worked with the International Federation for International Trade out of The Netherlands. We work together with them to basically create educational materials for, again, people to be empowered—municipalities, churches, whoever wants to have an event around educating people about Fair Trade. We supply them the materials, the education kits in order to do that. That includes media kits, information about Fair Trade, a poster to advertise the event,

 

World Fair Trade Day is the second Saturday of [May] every year. I don’t have a calendar in front of me, but I believe that it is May 12 of next year. So we actively promote World Fair Trade Day to the US and we have some Canadian folks involved, too. You would come to our website and basically get the information about “What Can I do to Promote Fair Trade in my Community?” And we would give you the tools to do that.

 

RM: That’s fantastic! I was actually in London celebrating [World Fair Trade Day] this year.

 

MM: Wonderful! That must have been fantastic!

 

RM: Oh yeah, yeah it was great. Most of my personal acquaintances know that I am quite keen on purchasing fairly-traded goods, whenever possible. I do try to buy things from companies or organizations committed to ensuring that workers were not exploited during the process. I am often asked whether purchasing a fairly-traded handbag or chocolate bar or banana really makes a difference. How do you respond to that?

 

MM: It absolutely makes a difference. Again, the model has been around, this Fair Trade model has been around for over 50 years, longer than that. But as if you look at the history of Fair Trade, it started mainly in the craft industry through churches, church groups, missions, missionaries. That’s how it got off the ground and it’s come a long way. We have a long way to go, but it is definitely more mainstream.

 

You can be assured—I think one of the things we miss as far as “What is Fair Trade?” You know, Fair Trade means Fair Price. The person that produced, the cooperative—it’s generally a cooperative, a group of people producing products—it’s a fair price. One that’s developed through dialogue and participation. It covers the cost of production, it improves the standard of living for the producers’ family, cooperative, and community, and it supports environmentally-sound practices.

 

RM: How much of the money actually goes to producers of products?

 

MM: That’s an interesting question because that really … because with coffee, there is a social premium—there’s like Fair Trade price and then generally an extra nickel that goes to like, building wells in the community. It depends on the cooperative, the cost to buy, and the situation, but there is what the producer gets and then what goes into the community: What do they need for infrastructure? Do they need schools? Do they need walls built? There is generally a committee or someone locally deciding where that money goes. But there is actually an organization called World of Good, and they are quantifying… you can actually go on their website and look up how much. I haven’t been there in quite a while, but it’s a Fair Trade Pricing Tool. Basically, they are creating a new level of standardization in Fair Trade in the Hand Craft sector.

 

It varies because you’re dealing with Fair Trade. Fair Trade means within the context of the country. What’s fair in India is going to be different than in Tanzania.

 

RM: Sure. I think if the goal of Fair Trade was to make everyone in the world a middle-class American, then I would question the economic likelihood of such a proposal. But for me, Fair Trade is not just about economic, it’s about justice. It’s about making sure that the people who produce products that I buy for my family are not working in a way that precludes them from providing for their own.

 

MM: Exactly. It’s an equalizer. I think that there is an extraordinary opportunity for people to impact positively, not even positively because that is a kind of glossing over, but really transforming people’s lives all around the world by purchasing or being involved in Fair Trade. Whether you want to purchase products…

 

We’re not going to buy ourselves out of this problem of poverty, so I think that other people can get involved in promoting Fair Trade wherever they are, with their churches or setting up their own group within their community, to really get people aware about, although we are a consumer-driven country and we buy stuff every day, if we actually focused on buying stuff that supported people rather than marginalizing them, then this world would be very, very different than what it is now.

 

RM: Absolutely, absolutely. … Mary, I first became familiar with Fair Trade while still living in the United Kingdom. I lived in both London and Oxford, as I mentioned earlier; Oxford, being an officially-recognized Fair Trade City. They were two relatively-easy places to find Fair Trade products. But, as a mom living in the US, how would I go about finding Fair Trade products? I know you mentioned a couple of places earlier, but do you mind mentioning those again?

 

MM: Sure. Of course you can always go to our website if I miss anything: www.ftrn.org, and we have a resource link. We have resources not only for purchasing but also more information about Fair Trade. There’s lots of stuff for free, other things for nominal fees. We’re not a membership organization, but we do accept donations because we are tax-deductible. So we encourage people, if you find the information useful, to contribute so we can keep moving on our mission.

 

So purchasing: For example, traditional grocery stores like Safeway, larger retailers, do carry specifically Fair Trade products. Again, it’s more in the coffee, there is Fair Trade tea. There is chocolate, but you have to look for the TransFair label. It’s a black-and-white logo of a person holding kind of like a globe. For foodstuff, there’s also Fair Trade bananas, pineapple. What’s just come out recently—they just came out with this in Europe—but Fair Trade soccer balls or sports balls that are coming out in the US. Those are coming.

 

The easiest way to buy Fair Trade is to go online and do a search, or you can go directly to stores like Ten Thousand Villages, they have thousands of stores in the US. It may not be convenient if you’re a mom living in a rural area, and you can order from them online. Serve a Greater Gift—they also have a catalog that they mail out. You can go online and look at their products. There are so many. If you were doing a search for ‘Fair Trade Products”, you would find more than… you’d have way too many choices.

 

What you want to look for, again, the reputable ones that have the Fair Trade Federation logo on their website which would be saying “This is an authentic, reputable company,” has some type of standards that they’re reporting to the Fair Trade Federation; and again www.fairtradefederation.org would give you a complete list of stores which you can actually access through their website.

 

RM: Fair Trade products aren’t more expensive than other products, are they?

 

MM: It depends. The overhead, for example, can be different. I find products very reasonable. I won’t go shopping for a basket at Wal-Mart. If I need something, I will go to Ten Thousand Villages. They have beautiful hand-made baskets for $3 or $6. That’s a great deal! And I see the story. I see the face of the person, the story. For me, it was “Of course I’m going to support them.”

 

So it depends. Coffee is a little bit more expensive, there’s been this rumor about quality. [The] quality is exceptional. I mean, yes, in the very beginning, I think it was a very, very poor product, but there are so many wonderful ways to buy Fair Trade coffee. Again, the TransFair logo is very important in finding products. But another great way to look for coffee is through a cooperative in the US called Cooperative Coffees. I have one of my board members is in association with them. They are a great organization with about distributing Fair Trade coffee in addition to the TransFair logo. There are so many great resources out there, even if you just get online and start searching or googling or however you search, there are just going to be so many great resources to find great stuff, beautiful materials, handmade.

 

RM: To learn more about the work of the Fair Trade Resource Network, or to find out how you can become a Fair Trader, please visit the website. And Mary, again that address?

 

MM: www.ftrn.org