Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the UK’s Fairtrade Foundation – an organisation that has dramatically transformed shopping habits and improved the lives of millions across the globe – is to officially open WTM World Responsible Tourism Day.
Lamb guided the Fairtrade Foundation to a period of staggering growth with estimated fair trade sales of more than £1 bn and 4,500 plus retail and catering products carrying the FAIRTRADE mark.
The Fairtrade Foundation aims to create better deals for marginalised workers and farmers in developing countries, by ensuring that they receive a fair price that enables them to make a sustainable living. They also receive an additional Fairtrade premium for investment in community development projects such as clean water, housing and education.
At the heart of a worldwide campaign for trade justice to ensure that everything from food to clothes produced in the third world receives a fair price and their products have global market access.
Fiona Jeffery, Chairman of World Travel Market and a pioneer of responsible tourism over the past 16 years, said she was delighted that Harriet Lamb is to be the guest speaker at WTM World Responsible Tourism Day’s opening ceremony on Wednesday 9 November.
“The Fairtrade Foundation has played a key role in driving fair trade battles”, said Jeffery. “Under Harriet Lamb’s strong leadership, it has achieved much with many similarities between the uphill fight to encourage travel and tourism to be more ethical, sustainable and caring and the huge challenges still facing Harriet and the fairtrade movement.”
Lamb said that a number of links exist between the travel industry and the escalating changes that are pushing responsible tourism to the top of the agenda and the principles of the fairtrade campaign.
“Across the world, the Fairtrade Foundation has begun to make a huge change to millions of lives”, said Lamb. “However, there is much to be done to challenge the deep injustices still disfiguring our world.
“The Fairtrade campaign has always operated successfully as a mosaic, with millions of individuals taking steps to affect change on a worldwide scale.”
Lamb became Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation in 2001. A flourishing grassroots social movement across the UK, there are now more than 500 Fairtrade Towns, where a commitment to Fairtrade has been made by the local authorities, shops and businesses. There are also 600 Fairtrade schools, 100 Fairtrade universities and 5,000 Fairtrade Faith Groups in the UK.
A mother with two children, Harriet lived in India for six years, including time working with farmers in rural villages and landless labourer co-operatives. She was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List in 2006.
Due to the increasing demand from delegates keen to attend, the opening ceremony will this year be held in a venue twice as large as previous years. Organisers hope this will avoid visitors being turned away. The ceremony will also be broadcast in ExCeL’s Central Boulevard.
WTM World Responsible Tourism Day, launched five years ago, strives to educate, motivate and inspire travel companies to engage in year-round responsible tourism activity. It is marked not only in London during World Travel Market but also with events throughout the world.
The Fairtrade Foundation was established in 1992 by CAFOD, Christian Aid, New Consumer, Oxfam, Traidcraft Exchange and the World Development Movement. The founding members were later joined by Britain’s largest women’s organisation, the Women’s Institute.
- WTM World Responsible Tourism Day Opening Ceremony, followed by the presentation of the Virgin Holidays Responsible Travel Awards takes place at 10.30 am Platinum Suite 3/4 , ExCeL London on Wednesday 9 November 2011
