Buyer Be Fair

Buyer Be Fair takes viewers to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada to explore how conscious consumers and businesses can use the market to promote social justice and environmental sustainability. Buyer Be Fair is an inspirational film that reaches beyond the choir to present the promise of Fair Trade with a focus on Forest Stewardship Council certified wood and Fair Trade coffee.

The Seattle WTO meetings and other trade gatherings have stirred powerful sentiment against globalization, but world trade is a juggernaut that will not be stopped. How can retailers and consumers use their purchasing power and market choice to make the world better for people and the environment? What is the promise of product certification and labeling? And how do consumers decide whether the labels can be believed?

We take viewers to isolated Indian villages in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, Seattle coffeehouses, the Netherlands (where the fair trade idea began twenty years ago), Germany, England, Sweden, Canada and the United States. We see how timber practices are certified by the Forest Stewardship and how certification is ending near-violent conflicts over timber cutting in British Columbia. We outline the conflicts between the FSC and other industry-based certifiers and see why giant firms like Home Depot and IKEA have lined up behind the more rigorous FSC, while other companies remain wary.

Can we globalize in ways that treat people fairly and respect the environment? How can consumers and retailers make choices that will make a difference? How is certification affecting the world's poor, and its lands? Can the lessons from timber and coffee certification be applied to other products?

PRODUCERS John de Graaf and Hana Jindrova, in association with Fox-Wilmar Productions and the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University's School of Communication.

Visit the Buyer Be Fair website