The article, ‘Green & Black's new UK chocolate bar will be neither organic nor Fairtrade’ by Lucy Siegle seeks to address ethical issues. The title in the name says itself that the chocolate brand Green & Black’s (G&B) is launching its first chocolate bar that is neither organic nor Fairtrade-certified. The problem being addressed is that the most widely recognised ethical brand of the Fairtrade system is ensuring fair price and decent working conditions for farmers and their products is being removed. The Fairtrade logo is currently benefitting 1.65 million farmers in developing countries. Sales of organic chocolate are expected to grow, and research in retail found that ethical consumers are increasing. According to (), consumers are interested in the social behaviour’s of a firm’s reputation which can influence their choice on what product to purchase. The author raises the question ‘must the consumer always have a product to satisfy every possible desire? This can be lead to the business Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) where an organizations advantage to consider and take responsibility for the company effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The article focuses on the expanding business of Fair Trade products, when retailers sell Fair Trade products, it is promising consumers that they are involved in helping Third World farmers. Therefore, retailers with a good CSR reputation will be able to obtain trust from consumers that are interested in ethical concerns such as Fair Trade products and CSR. This is the ethical issue that G&B is facing, the essay will discuss ethical theories as well as the importance of CSR.
With the rise of ethical concern and importance of CSR, businesses should be emphasizing their ethical guidelines for their products as more consumers have higher demands from them. In the name of the chocolate company ‘G&B’, ‘Green’ stands for the strict organic principles the organisation promotes. However, the announcement that their new launch of not being organic can damage the company’s CSR. G&B’s success has mainly come from being socially responsible which attracted consumers looking for organic products. Findings have shown () that ethical practices can affect stakeholders (customer, government, employee, society etc.) of the business such as G&B. Sigle (2017) argues that the company had actually been awarded the Fairtrade mark and must provide by their reputation of being organic and supporting Fair Trade. G&B have stated that for them to enable their new Velvet Edition chocolate bar, there weren’t enough cocoa beans produced by Fairtrade and organic standards. It is argued that Fairtrade is promoted in order to ensure the sustainability of capitalism and not actually a valid system, however, companies that have reputations of strict solidarity trade such as Cadbury are also associated with Fairtrade. It is evident that most socially responsible companies w...
