Tue, 27 Jan 2004

“Fair Trade for All” conference in Switzerland

“Special Prize 2004 for Geatest Social Competence” awarded to Sekem founder Ibrahim Abouleisch

Herzber/AG, 27 January (NNA) – “We cannot reinvent the world, but we can change it,“ the management consultant Udo Herrmannstorfer told participants at the “Fair Trade for All” conference in Herzberg, Switzerland, at the weekend.

According to a report from the Swiss Anthroposophical Media Centre (MAS), Herrmannstorfer took the up to 100 Demeter consumers attending the conference on a journey which led them from “waking up to their responsibilities as consumers” to their “new role as contract partners” who together with producers and retailers had to seek an appropriate balance and fairness: “The end consumers must not see themselves simply as the victims of economic circumstances, but as initiators of economic action who act with responsibility in that capacity.”

Profit maximisation for producers and “the cheapest” for consumers should be replaced by “working together” which achieves the optimum for everyone involved.

According to MAS, the initiator of the Sekem project in Egypt, Ibrahim Abouleish , who received the Alternative Nobel Prize last December, took time off from the World Economic Forum in Davos to visit the Demeter consumers in Herzberg and receive the “Special Prize 2004 for Greatest Social Competence” from them.

Associative economics: how and where?

Alongside bio-dynamic agriculture, the Demeter consumers also wanted to support associative economics, MAS further reports. That this is already being practiced today in certain contexts was illustrated by leading representatives from the Demeter Association and Weleda among others.

The rapid growth of the fair trade label “Max Havelaar” reflected the wish of many people to support both the environment and social justice as well as their willingness to bear the cost of that. New forms of handling money and profit were illustrated by the Freie Gemeinschaftsbank BCL bank in Basle und the CoOpera project in Bern which comprises an alternative pension fund as well as an investment, property and leasing company.

Such approaches could turn business back into “a true school of life in which we practice dealing with our fellow human beings and the environment in an ever more resourceful and social way,“ the lecturer in agriculture Michæl Rist concluded.

END/cva

Item reference number: “Fair Trade for All” conference in Switzerland

“Special Prize 2004 for Geatest Social Competence” awarded to Sekem founder Ibrahim Abouleisch

Herzber/AG, 27 January (NNA) – “We cannot reinvent the world, but we can change it,“ the management consultant Udo Herrmannstorfer told participants at the “Fair Trade for All” conference in Herzberg, Switzerland, at the weekend.

According to a report from the Swiss Anthroposophical Media Centre (MAS), Herrmannstorfer took the up to 100 Demeter consumers attending the conference on a journey which led them from “waking up to their responsibilities as consumers” to their “new role as contract partners” who together with producers and retailers had to seek an appropriate balance and fairness: “The end consumers must not see themselves simply as the victims of economic circumstances, but as initiators of economic action who act with responsibility in that capacity.”

Profit maximisation for producers and “the cheapest” for consumers should be replaced by “working together” which achieves the optimum for everyone involved.

According to MAS, the initiator of the Sekem project in Egypt, Ibrahim Abouleish , who received the Alternative Nobel Prize last December, took time off from the World Economic Forum in Davos to visit the Demeter consumers in Herzberg and receive the “Special Prize 2004 for Greatest Social Competence” from them.

Associative economics: how and where?

Alongside bio-dynamic agriculture, the Demeter consumers also wanted to support associative economics, MAS further reports. That this is already being practiced today in certain contexts was illustrated by leading representatives from the Demeter Association and Weleda among others.

The rapid growth of the fair trade label “Max Havelaar” reflected the wish of many people to support both the environment and social justice as well as their willingness to bear the cost of that. New forms of handling money and profit were illustrated by the Freie Gemeinschaftsbank BCL bank in Basle und the CoOpera project in Bern which comprises an alternative pension fund as well as an investment, property and leasing company.

Such approaches could turn business back into “a true school of life in which we practice dealing with our fellow human beings and the environment in an ever more resourceful and social way,“ the lecturer in agriculture Michæl Rist concluded.

END/cva

Item reference number: N040127-01EN

Date: 27 January 2004

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