Archive for October, 2007

A different kind of sampling in Curico…

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Dorothea, Maca and I have had a most exciting week in Curico with our excellent partners at Los Robles. Marta has shown us how chemical analysis ensures quality control; Paula has shared her expertise in mixing grapes to produce the best from the harvest; Diana has described the social programme of the collective; Felipe, Fidel and Pablo have introduced the documentation processes that see conversion from kilos of grapes to litres of wine; Francisco and Sergio have explained the value of FairTrade – and we happened to meet Leo of FLO conducting one of his regular assessment visits, so we had an interesting chat with him too. We ran a workshop on how all the different information that contributes to wine production might be made available and intelligible to ethical consumers, held a drinks event for anyone interested in contributing their stories and images from daily life, sampled collective life with an evening of ‘asado’ and vino Los Robles (see picture below), and made two visits to meet producers in their vineyards. (And that was all before breakfast!)

Asado, first night of our visit to Curico

Our hosts are really friendly and my Spanish skills are increasing exponentially (from a very small base). I can’t believe that it’s all over for this visit in just three days…

Dorothea and Maca say hi!

Posted in Chile, Fair Tracing project activities, General, Wine | No Comments »

Actics.com, the ethical Facebook

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Actics.com, the “Ethical Facebook” (TreeHugger)

Whether you are a business or an individual, Actics provides you with an ethical reality check and helps you turn your ethical visions into authentic actions. By signing up to this free social network, your corporate values will shine in the spotlight- a type of transparency more and more in demand, no matter what industry you belong to. It also works the other way around for you. If you are the one looking for a restaurant, lawyer or school, you can check out the ones with a high Actics rating and the ethical values important to you.

How does is work? Like with any other social network, you register and define who you are for your profile. Since this one is all about actions and ethics, you get to choose your corporate or personal values and state how you act them out. It is then up to your friends, clients or investors to rate you out of 100 for how true you are to your values. To help you out, they can also send you suggestions and endorse you. A great feature of this software is that a plugin, showing your ethical performance, can be integrated into your website or your company’s intranet if you want to share your results with a bigger network.

Posted in General, Technology, UI | No Comments »

Los Robles at the Wines of Chile Annual Trade Tasting

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

copy-of-2007-10-wines-of-chile-tasting-2.jpg

 

On October 16th we met Los Robles at the Wines of Chile Annual Trade Tasting in London. Dorothea and I tasted the excellent new harvest 2007 and enjoyed the company of Export manager Sergio and Chief Oenologist Paula from Los Robles. We also met Joy Edmondson from Ehrmanns, Los Robles’ wine importer in the UK.  

 From the more than 90 Chilean wine producers participating in the exhibition, Los Robles was the only one with fairtrade wine.

  

  

Posted in Events, Fair Tracing project activities, Fairtrade, General, Wine | 1 Comment »

Seminar at the Oxford Internet Institute

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

I will be giving a seminar on my research from 1215-1330 next Wednesday (10 Oct) at the Oxford Internet Institute. If you’d like to hear more about Fair Tracing in person, come along! Please e-mail our events officer (events at oii.ox.ac.uk) to let us know you will be coming.

Posted in Events, Fair Tracing project activities, Technology | No Comments »