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On June 9th at 4:30 p.m., Michael Bronner, Vice President, DR. BRONNER’S MAGIC SOAPS will be presenting at Sustainable Fragrances 2011 on ‘Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps: Becoming a Fair Trade Bodycare Brand.’ To whet your appetite for this year’s event, Michael shared some of this thoughts on fair trade, challenges the fragrance industry is facing and what he’s looking forward to at this year’s event:

[IntertechPira] Your presentation will focus on the issue of fair trade. Can you provide some background and historical perspective to explain why this is such an important issue in your company?

[Michael Bronner] Being responsible to the people we work with has always been a pillar of Dr. Bronner’s business philosophy. In 2002, we decided to expand that philosophy to our supply chains and determined to shift our major raw materials to certified organic. By 2003, all our soaps were certified under the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP), but over the next two years we realized that Michael Bronnerour supply chains were opaque to us: we bought from intermediate brokers and did not know whether the organic farmers, farm workers and factory workers in our supply chains received fair prices and wages, or whether child or exploited labor made our organic oils.