Fair Trade + Plastic Free July: One Purchase, Double the Good

Going plastic-free, buying ethically, knowing your stuff was made fairly, that's a lot to weigh up at checkout.

Good news: with Fair Trade, caring for the planet isn't an add-on, it's built in. One purchase supports people and protects the environment at once. This July, we're showing you why that matters.

What we buy has a ripple effect

Every product has a life before it reaches your hands, and a life after you're done with it. Raw materials are extracted, goods are made, shipped, used and eventually disposed of. Every step carries an environmental cost.

And those costs don't fall evenly. The communities most affected are often:

• those closest to agricultural production

• indigenous peoples who have cared for land and ecosystems for generations

• coastal communities wading through plastic waste

These are so often the people with the least power to change the systems. When plastic enters their waterways and soils, they feel it first and hardest.

That's not a distant problem. It's happening in the same communities where many Fair Trade producers live and work.

What choose to buy is never just a personal decision. It's connected to real people and places far beyond our kitchen benches.

Fair Trade already has a plan for this

Principle Ten of the World Fair Trade Organization's ten Fair Trade Principles is dedicated to climate action and protection of the environment, and it's more specific than you might expect.

It doesn't just ask Fair Trade organisations to "be sustainable." It mandates that businesses:

• maximise the use of sustainable, recycled, or easily biodegradable materials for packaging

• actively minimise their overall environmental footprint

• build resilience to climate change

• protect biodiversity and support indigenous land stewardship

• reduce emissions across their entire operations

And it doesn't stop at the producer. Principle Ten extends to importers and buyers too, asking them to support supply chain partners in adopting practices that genuinely protect the planet.

Emerging frameworks are taking this even further. The Fair Circularity Initiative requires organisations to take responsibility for the entire life cycle of materials: not just recycling, but designing out waste at the source, and ensuring that reuse systems are safe and non-toxic. In practice, this looks like:

• compostable paper packaging

• regenerative materials

• zero-plastic wrapping

Fair Trade organisations work through the full supply chain. They work to ensure transparency in their supply chains, looking at working groups like waste pickers, to ensure they are paid fair prices and given safe working conditions. Fair Trade and circular economy, working together.

In other words, climate action isn't a footnote in Fair Trade. It's woven into the whole thing, from the field, to the shelf, to your front door.

So where does Plastic Free July fit in?

Single-use plastic is one of the most visible symptoms of our throwaway culture, and it drives both climate change and environmental destruction. Making it burns fossil fuels. Disposing of it (or not disposing of it properly) pollutes the waterways, soils, and ecosystems that farming communities and indigenous peoples depend on every single day.

Every piece of plastic that never gets made? That's a small but real win for those ecosystems and the people in them.

Plastic Free July and Fair Trade Principle Ten are pointing in exactly the same direction. Both ask us to think carefully about the real-world impact of everyday choices. Both know that protecting the planet takes action at every level, from policy and business practice right down to the decision you make at the checkout.

Here's the beautiful part: you don't have to choose between protecting the environment and supporting the people most affected by it. One Fair Trade, plastic-free purchase does both. It protects the ecosystems communities depend on. It puts money into the hands of the people who steward them. That's real power, and it's sitting in your shopping basket.

Ready to take action? Here's where to start.

The good news: you don't need to overhaul your entire life. Small, consistent choices are where the magic happens, and July is the perfect moment to start.

Join Plastic Free July. It's free and genuinely practical. Head to plasticfreejuly.org for challenges, tips, and resources that make the changes feel doable rather than overwhelming.

Choose Fair Trade. Look for Fair Trade products, ask questions about where things come from, and trust brands that are transparent about their supply chains. When you buy Fair Trade, you're not just making an ethical choice. You're making a direct, positive difference to the lives of real people and the health of the planet they depend on. Both. At once.

Shop with intention.

Everything we stock at All of the Good Things is chosen because it's better for people and the planet: plastic-free packaging, ethical sourcing, and products made to last. Because the best way to reduce waste is to buy things worth keeping.

The climate crisis can feel enormous. But the response to it is built out of millions of small decisions, made by real people, every single day. Plastic Free July and Fair Trade Principle Ten both exist because those decisions matter.

So does yours.

Author: Joshua Kennedy

Source: WFTO Fair Trade Principles: wfto.com/our-fair-trade-system/our-10-principles-of-fair-trade