1. Artisan and Innovation..The New Ethics in Business.

A big new development has been the engagement with countries in need in selling products and giving back. Exploitation in the third world is in many cases being replaced with new partnerships and charity with fairtrade.
Notice the announcements at the new IKEA store in Dublin regarding products developed as a result of Ikea's Social Initiative in conjunction with Unicef which has meant financial support in real terms totalling $180 million.
Initially, this was in Utter Pradesh in India but now it involves more than 20,000 women in 500 villages helping them to open tea shops, floor mills and embroidery making centres supplying clients including Ikea themselves.
The focus of the initiative is to move women towards economic empowerment and is similar in many ways to the goal of the MIM project, where Crafted, innovative felt products are made in centres both in the capital Ullan Bateer? And areas of the Gobi Desert, helping women and their families to a
better and sustainable standard of living. MIM is now a Brand selling to speciality shops in Italy/Japan/US/Canada and Ireland to date and the fairtrade story is a really important element for customers in the marketplace. Here in Ireland it sells to Avoca, Kilkenny stores from the Autumn and 15 other fine speciality stores across the country and all deleloped as a voluntary collaberation between people in business and design here in Ireland and communities in Mongolia.
It is now supported in it's development by the Dalai Lama and the Irish Government. The development of the Grameen Bank is another fantastic example of new ways of assisting communities. Making loans available at low interest rates to poorer communities and started over 10 years ago in Bangladesh it has sucessfully helped women to set up small businesses within their communities. With a success rate of over 96% repayment the money is pooled to help others set up enterprises and has now expanded to other countries.
The combination of ethics and innovation has really appealed to consumers worldwide and for Ikea's , MIM and many other innovative products developed in this way these collaberations have a bright future as they make both
business and ethical sense. It allows for design development and artisan skills to be combined, with a great Brand story and need not involve enormous quantities as with mass production.
www.madeinmongolia.net
www.grameenbank.com
www.financialtimes.com
www.ikea.com