Shopping

T-shirt, £6, George at Asda

2 Fairtrade
The Fairtrade mark guarantees that farmers are paid fairly and have decent working conditions. Many high-street stores now trumpet their fair trade credentials, but not all are credited by the Fairtrade Foundation. If you want to be sure that the clothes you buy have been genuinely fairly traded, check they carry the Fairtrade Foundation trademark. Further details are available at www.fairtrade.org.uk.

Best: Marks & Spencer
Last year, Marks & Spencer became the first major UK retailer to use clothing made from 100 per cent Fairtrade cotton for a range of T-shirts and socks, cotton shirts and some baby clothing. Campaigners have lauded M&S for this initiative, while pointing out that growing cotton is only one process in making the garment and Fairtrade conditions are not yet guaranteed in the factories which turn the cotton into clothes.
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There are also concerns that Fairtrade is an easy way for stores to trumpet their ethical concerns without having to commit to changing their buying policies – most stores now stock at least a few Fairtrade items, but that number is usually minuscule compared to the store’s total clothing output.

Topshop, for example, boasts clothing from Fairtrade brands Gossypium, Hug, Kuyichi and People Tree, but when we checked its flagship Oxford Circus store we could find only six different pieces from People Tree, and 14 from Kuyichi. But, as with M&S, it is a start.

Worst: Supermarkets
The supermarkets have been slowest to include Fairtrade in their collections, but recently all have jumped on board: Tu Sainsbury’s offering a small Fairtrade range and Katharine Hamnett is designing a range for Tesco. Primark, which has just opened a mammoth new store on Oxford Street (499-517, Oxford Street, W1) is the latest to launch a line. Again, such items represent a tiny proportion of its stock.