We at Empowerment WORKS define Sustainable Business as "Harnessing market forces to create positive social and environmental impact". Our goal with the Beyond Fair Trade™ product distinction is to go beyond Corporate Social Responsibility to regenerate the earth's primary resources-- including its people!
Beyond Fair Trade™ Standards & Distinctions
The basic criteria for Empowerment WORKS' Beyond Fair Trade™ certification is that - in addition to ethical and sustainable production and living wage standards - all product makers/ sellers give a minimum of 5% of sales income to social and/or environmental initiatives where products are made.
As a WorldofGood.com by eBay Trust Provider, EW verifies sellers of products that:
1) honor and protect indigenous cultural heritage/ traditions;
2) conserve energy and natural resources
3) create livelihoods for people in need; and/or
4) donate 5% of sales to support sustainable health, educational, and environmental programs
Fostering economic opportunities where they are needed most, Beyond Fair Trade™ includes a myriad of products and lifestyle brands. While it honors official Fair Trade certification, it also includes products from grass-roots producers who fully deserve access to ethical markets yet may not be able to afford it. Empowerment WORKS serves these groups via a local nonprofit partner verification system assuring relevant ecological and social sustainability standards.
The Beyond Fair Trade™ concept was inspired by local artisans in Zimbabwe and developed after the World Social Forum in Kenya in January 2007 in seeing a common need for so many grass-roots organizations to better market their self-help goods.
Public-Private Partnership: How Beyond Fair Trade™ WORKS
While thousands of non-profits struggle to market self-help crafts from their programs, their capacity is not in global product marketing. Maybe this is where you come in?
By linking local projects with fair-trade groups and community conscious businesses, Beyond Fair Trade™ seeks to integrate the best of each sector to assure consistent markets for products that value and protect indigenous heritage.
Sponsoring businesses apply their expertise in marketing and sustainable product development while collaborating non-profits monitor local impacts where the products are made. With the benefit of in-kind donations in marketing, the price points are kept fair, allowing for 5% or more of gross sales to support grass-roots health, educational and environmental programs in the communities where the products are made.
Local Producers - Global Brand
While isolated, village-based efforts are unable to gain the critical mass needed for brand recognition, collaborative, corporate funded cause-based marketing campaign (RED)® became a household name.
Imagine if global brands created jobs for the people they were raising funds for --thus addressing the root cause of AIDS, Poverty. Beyond Fair Trade™ aims to seize this opportunity by working with businesses, artisans and community based NGOs to build a brand that none can create alone, along with the access to markets that our local partners deserve. .
Community Impact through Empowerment WORKS
In the communities we serve, the greatest forces for change are the people who live there-- addressing root causes of critical issues from the ground up. Working with a multi-sector network of Partners in Empowerment,
Empowerment WORKS' collaborative program strategy connects the tools grass-roots communities need (access to markets, appropriate technologies and capital) to turn local assets into global health, economic and environmental solutions.
Using their natural resources, cultural arts and specialized talents, our grass-roots partners create beautiful music, handmade fabrics and other crafts. With the right access to markets and a little design savvy, these local assets can provide sustainable livelihoods for people in need AND sustain local programs. 
