A Lesson in Transparency

by Zarah Patriana · 2009-01-22 18:00:00 -0500
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Transparency.

I was reading whitehouse.gov's first blog post the other day. The Obama administration has committed to be the most open and transparent in history.

Transparency.

I was listening to Jim Hightower the other morning and he was discussing how Wall Street is refusing to tell the public exactly how they're spending "the billions of dollars Washington has thrown them". JPMorgan, we gave you $25 million dollars. What are you doing with it?

We have not disclosed that to the public. We’re declining to.

Morgan Stanley. You walked away with $10 billion. Where's it going?

We’re going to decline to comment.

Sun Trust Banks. You snagged $3.5 billion from the bailout. What next? Disneyland? Resort Vacation, AIG-Exec style?

We’re not providing dollar-in, dollar-out tracking.

O rly now?

Lots of talk of transparency lately (or lack thereof), but for those in the Fair Trade movement, it's the only way to be. One of the ten Fair Trade standards according to IFAT is that it "involves transparent management and commercial relations to deal fairly and respectfully with trading partners". Fair Trade companies out there are transparent as can be.

Take Dean's Beans for example. They have their Fair Trade audit documents on their website for all of us to see.

Just Coffee has their whole supply chain breakdown on their site. Contracts and invoices in PDF format. PDFs!-- even breaking down where every penny that you spend on a bag of their coffee goes. How does that song go? Beauty in the breakdown? Yes.

Even more thorough is Cooperative Coffee's Fair Trade Proof.

Fair Trade Proof dot org is

an online transparency tool that allows the user to view every piece of paperwork involved in bringing coffee from farmer to roaster. Without proof, anyone can say anything. This site is part of our effort to provide total transparency in the coffee importation process.

Invoices. Contracts. Premiums. Organic transactions. Pre-finance. Weight of the coffee. Where the coffee came from. Which dock the coffee came into. Everything.

I checked it out myself and I spent a lot of time tracking the trail of the coffee that I have been drinking. A lot of time nerding out on my coffee trail.

One I was particularly interested in was the documents from the CECOCAFEN coffee cooperative in Nicaragua because I spent some time with them this past summer. Quite interesting.

Really. Do check it out for yourself. From farmer to roaster to your cup of joe.

So, want a lesson in transparency? Take a look at the Fair Trade movement.

As consumers, retailers, roasters, importers, or producers, we need to start demanding higher levels of transparency from the world around us and decide to be better informed. With truth (and proof of the truth), comes the power to make things better. [Cooperative Coffees]

[transparency photo idea is 100% Just Coffee's. So clever.]

Zarah Patriana
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