History
The Fairtrade Town campaign was first launched in 2001 in Garstang, Lancashire, under the initiative of Bruce Crowther, a local Oxfam supporter, and the Garstang Oxfam Group. The initiative, which aimed to promote Fairtrade certified goods in the town, was highly successful: within a couple of months, awareness of the Fairtrade Mark jumped to over 70% in the town while sales of Fairtrade certified goods increased significantly. Moreover, over the course of the campaign, Garstang developed links with Fairtrade cocoa farming communities in West Africa, which led to the twin town relationship with New Koforidua, Ghana.
As the activities at Garstang gained wider attention, the Fairtrade Foundation launched a set of Fairtrade Town Goals and an Action Guide to encourage others to follow in the town's success. During the 2001-2006 period, over 209 British towns were awarded the Fairtrade status by the Fairtrade Foundation. In October 2009 448 British towns and 312 towns worldwide awarded the Fairtrade status (in total 760).
In an attempt to replicate the success of the Fairtrade Foundation's Fairtrade Town program, a Europe-wide program called "Fairtrade Towns in Europe", part-funded by the European Commission, was launched jointly by several Fairtrade labelling initiatives.
In November 2006, the first ever European Fairtrade Towns conference was hosted at London Southbank University. The goals of the conference were to
- identify and develop procedures to strengthen the links within and between local communities and private and public organisations;
- develop strategies to enable the UK Fairtrade Towns model to meet the requirements of each individual country.
Following the success of the first event, a second Fairtrade towns conference was subsequently held in Brussels in January 2008.
There are currently Fairtrade Towns in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brasil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. See List of Fairtrade settlements for a list of current Fairtrade settlements.
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