FAIR ZONE? What should I understand by it?

Under the brand name FAIR ZONE we sell fair trade products for at-home use and gardening, which we offer you as a first step towards a plastic-free home. To achieve this goal, we develop and produce quality products in transparently traceable production processes together with our fair trade partners. This means we pay an extra price for the ingredients that we source from poor regions of the world. This money is used to improve the producers’ living and working conditions including those of the plantation workers and small farmers as well as their families on site. FAIR ZONE stands for fair treatment of all parties involved in the production process.

Our personal claim: humane working conditions, ecologically sustainable management and the consistent renunciation of animal testing and child labour.

How it all started

Record low prices for rubber, lamentable living and working conditions for plantation workers and the challenges facing small-scale rubber producers in global competition were the topics that started to deeply concern us in 2006, along with reports on global warming and emissions.

Association for fair natural rubber

The fact that supply and cultivation conditions of rubber have not yet been taken into account in the certification process and auditing of Fairtrade International gave us – together with fellow campaigners – an idea.

So we became the first to apply the concept of fair trade to rubber products and introduced FSC© certification in rubber production. After several years of experience, we founded Fair Rubber e. V. in 2012 to set our fair trade collaborations on a solid foundation. Since then, we have been promoting the use of less plastics by using natural rubber instead. And what only few people know: Rubber trees absorb more CO2 per square metre than tropical rainforests. We also advertise that by certifying products and selling them, an active contribution is made to significantly improve the living and working conditions on the plantations.

Extensive knowledge and product innovations

Since the founding of the Fair Rubber Association and our personal commitment to fair natural rubber, it goes without saying that a great deal of comprehensive knowledge about fair trade, a fascination for the raw material and a personal connection to the people in the producing countries have developed.

All the time we asked ourselves why nobody is producing one or the other plastic product from the renewable raw material rubber. But we no longer ask ourselves this question today as we started to do exactly that with FAIR ZONE and bring rubber back into everyday life where it rightfully belongs. As a sustainable, renewable and biodegradable material, which definitely has the potential to make plastic redundant in many items.

FAIR ZONE – a FAIR SQUARED brand

The brand is looking back on many years of experience in fair trade, to be precise: the company FAIR SQUARED from Cologne. We started under this name back in 2005 to expand the fair trade theme to the natural cosmetics and hygiene industry. What began with condoms, hand creams and lip care quickly developed into a broad portfolio of FAIR care products.

Be the change!

What have we learned from this? Fair trade pays off – definitely. So we moved forward with the idea of reinventing the household, gardening and leisure sectors – with sustainable and fair raw materials to products that make the difference. Will you change your home into a FAIR ZONE together with us?