Las Vegas Market: Fair Trade & Sustainable Resources Grow: Three Exhibitors Recognized With Inaugural Global Goodness Award
In sync with consumers’ growing interest in socially responsible and eco-friendly products, an increasing number of these resources will be featured at the Summer 2013 Las Vegas Market running July 29-August 2 at World Market Center Las Vegas. Additionally, three Las Vegas Market exhibitors have been named finalists in International Market Center’s first annual Global Goodness Awards, recognizing gift and décor companies for acting in a socially responsible manner and making the world a better place.
This new awards program supplements the ongoing partnership Las Vegas Market has with the Sustainable Furnishings Council to create One Good World, a guide to sustainable furniture and home décor products to help connect legitimate suppliers and retailers in this new era of sustainability and accountability. Details are available online at http://www.sustainablefurnishings.org/content/our-mission.
Las Vegas Market is experiencing a large influx of gift and home décor exhibitors offering Fair Trade and sustainable products and has added two related product categories that highlight these companies: In Building C: MADE on C5 — a “show within a show” — spotlights handcrafted, artisanal products including handmade ceramics, pottery, home décor, letterpress, apparel and jewelry; and GLOBAL on C11, presents unique products from around the world with an emphasis on fairly traded products, social responsibility, and global community development.
Other Summer 2013 newcomers to the Las Vegas Market with Fair Trade and sustainable business practices include: A Lost Art, Asylum Down, Beyond Borders, Bridge for Africa, Design Africa, Eangee, Enrico Products, F. T. Renner Co., Gifts of Nature, Glory Haus, Grace Direct/Greenleaf, Indika, It’s Cactus, Nativo, Papel Amate Otomi De Puebla, Poco A Poco, Silly Yeti, Sleep & Beyond, Stoneage Global Arts, Swahili Imports, Tanami, Tribalinks, and Wild Woolies, plus many more.
“Las Vegas Market recognizes and celebrates the gift and home industry’s efforts to do well by doing good, and our Global Goodness initiative promotes good corporate citizenship by recognizing exhibiting suppliers who offer artisanal, sustainable, eco-friendly and Fair Trade products that help improve the lives of people all over the world,” states Dorothy Belshaw, president of Gift & Home Décor for International Market Centers. “As the leading home furnishings and gift destination in the western U.S., Las Vegas Market is taking proactive steps to respect the environment and create a better future.”
The three inaugural Global Goodness honorees — Bridgewater Candle Co., Kismet Designs, and SEAsTra — have demonstrated sustainable and socially responsible practices into their businesses and manufacturing processes. Bridgewater Candle Co. partners with Rice Bowls, a non-profit organization whose mission is to feed and nurture orphaned children worldwide. Bridgewater donates 75 cents from every jar candle sold to Rice Bowls to feed an orphaned child for a day through its “Light a Candle Feed a Child” program. Similarly, Kismet Designs has been working directly with artisans in rural India since 1999, using sustainable local resources and recycled vintage materials in its handmade products. SEAsTra promotes increased economic stability and sustainability, working with primarily rural, artisan groups in Thailand, creating hand-woven silk and cotton scarves and shawls; repurposed, hand-embroidered Hill Tribe fabric handbags; handcrafted jewelry; and legacy fabric shoes and boots.
“Las Vegas Market is also demonstrating its commitment to environmental responsibility in its own operations,” Belshaw adds. “This includes recycling packing material and using environmentally friendly products whenever possible – from water bottles, paper, and plastic materials that contain a higher level of recyclable material to eco-friendly vases for floral designs.”
Exhibitors welcome the acknowledgment of their Fair Trade and sustainability efforts. Molly Holm, owner and chief creative officer of Glory Haus, a new anchor tenant in the C10 Lifestyle Collection, says, “Creating communities where people are empowered, healed, encouraged, loved, and changed for the better good is a core belief of the Glory Haus mission; we call it community transformation. With this belief, the Glory Haus family desires to help emerging third world artisans establish a sustainable trade to improve their quality of life and change their community from poverty to sustainable living. Glory Haus offers a challenge to other companies to join them in this transformational endeavor to extend a helping hand to third world artisans who desperately need our help.”
