The fair trade in the institutional policies and practices of the Spanish universities

Abstract

Fair trade has been recognized as an effective way of eradicating poverty and sustainable development. It is a reality increasingly supported by consumers; in 2019, the entities that market fair trade products invoiced more than 138,5 million euros in Spain. This support has been encouraged by greater social concern for global problems such as poverty or exploitation, and for education and development cooperation actions and policies, among others. In this context, Spanish universities have been working for more than a decade to bring fair trade closer to the university community. Aware of their impact on the production and consumption model, 21 universities have positioned themselves politically in favour of fair trade. This commitment has reached the Executive Committee of CRUE-Internationalization and Cooperation, which approved its Declaration of Spanish Universities in favour of fair trade and responsible consumption in 2017, with the aim of contributing to «guarantee sustainable consumption and production models». During all this time, the institutional positioning has been accompanied by policies for the integration of ecological and fair trade criteria in its purchases, the formation of work groups, the implementation of research and teaching actions, the development of strategies for mainstreaming of sustainable consumption, and international cooperation projects with producer groups, as well as the participation in interuniversity networks, such as Fair Trade Universities, coordinated by the IDEAS cooperative at the state level, and which has become a backbone, binder and enhancer of this commitment, together with the subgroup of fair trade and responsible consumption of the CRUE.