The Green Impact blog is being handed over to the Faculty of Engineering – Central Services team this week! This post is by Elinor Noble, the team’s lead. If you or your team would like to contribute to the blog, email greenimpact@sheffield.ac.uk.
As all Green Impact teams will know, 27th February to 12th March was the Fairtrade Fortnight.
On Wednesday 1st March, we held a Fairtrade Fortnight bake off, with cakes using Fairtrade Foundation ingredients, and also held a cake and plant sale to raise money for both the Fairtrade Foundation and Engineers without Borders. We also sold Fairtrade tea, coffee and hot chocolate. We worked with Chemical & Biological Engineering, Kroto Research Institute and Materials Science Engineering Green Impact teams to organise the event, and raised £114 in total, which we were very happy about!
Here’s a picture of the winning cake ‘Pancake day’, made by Sue Woodard. A cake that looked like a pancake on the outside, but was a delicious lemon drizzle cake on the inside!
Fairtrade Foundation was established in 1992 by CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Traidcraft, Global Justice Now, and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. There are now 1.65 million farmers and workers in Fairtrade certified producer organisations, with 26% of the farmers and workers being women.
Being involved in Green Impact has made me consider more carefully where our food comes from, and how it affects our world environmentally and socially. Realistically, we might not necessarily buy Fairtrade for everything, all the time, but the fact that people do buy Fairtrade encourages the supermarkets to find and support Fairtrade suppliers.
In terms of environment – the Fairtrade Foundation says: ‘The Fairtrade Standards also promote training for farmers, which can include advice on switching to environmentally friendly practices. This has been shown to lead to good agricultural practices, which have encouraged environmentally sustainable production. The Standards also guide producers in adapting to climate change and mitigate their impact.’ (http://fairtrade.org.uk/en)
So we were happy to support Fairtrade Fortnight, and to give a donation to the Fairtrade Foundation to support their work, not only because we get to tick a few boxes on the Green Impact workbook, but because this small donation and show of support could help change people’s buying behaviour, which in turn makes a better world for ourselves and others to live in.