Fair Year 2013

In future, you can celebrate Ilosaarirock in a fair manner. We have started cooperation with the Fairtrade foundation of Finland, and the fruit of this work is ethically sustainable food, coffee and wine for festival goers. The City of Joensuu, the receiver of the title Fair City for its pioneering position in sustainable purchasing, also participates in the cooperation.

Ilosaarirock goers are going to be enjoying Fairtrade products at the fair brunch, which replaces the traditional rock breakfast (rokkiaamiainen). The fair brunch offers festival goers an abundant and subtantial setting of fairtrade, organic and Finnish food.

The new restaurant in the festival area, Pop Up Kerubi, presents over 18-year old festival goers with organic and Fairtrade wines. The restaurant also servers organic and locally produced food. In addition, all coffee served in Ilosaarirock is Fairtrade coffee.

Purchases as this year's theme

Ilosaarirock has invested in environmental conservation for a long time already. In previous years the festival has concentrated on minimising carbon dioxide emissions and improving recycling. Last year, Ilosaarirock was awarded the international A Greener Festival Award, the first of its kind to be awarded for a Finnish festival; and with the highest possible grade, Outstanding!

The environmental theme of the year 2013 is purchases. Besides the fairtrade food, coffee and wine, the Ilosaarirock festival merchandise is organically, ethically and sustainably produced. The catering for festival's artists and workers is also taken care of with ethics and ecological sustainability as the leading principles. Even the festival's wristbands are made of recycled plastic! We also try to avoid unnecessary purchases by reusing materials from previous years' festivals as much as possible.

We recommend that all Ilosaarirock goers think about their purchases. Disposability is, after all, clearly a four-letter word.

Why fairtrade?

Fairtrade gives the third world farmers and workers a chance to make a living with their work. By purchasing Fairtrade-certified products from the third world you can be sure that the products are grown in supervised conditions without human rights violations and child labour.

In purchases we want to pay attention to sustainability in the countries that the products come from. The Fairtrade system includes strict environmental criteria that regulate cultivation in the country of origin. Gene manipulation is forbidden in Fairtrade products. Many Fairtrade products are also organic.

The Fairtrade minimum price permits the third world farmers to actually make a living with their work.

The Fairtrade Premium, paid in addition to the Fairtrade minimum price, enables farming communities to improve their own wellbeing by building hospitals, roads, schools, and wells, for example.

The Fairtrade system is internationally the best known and the most comprehensive ethical certification system, and it is supervised by an external supervision enterprise. The Fairtrade system is developed continuously in cooperation with farmers and non-governmental organisations. The farmers have a 50% voice in all policy-making.

In the Fairtrade system, it is forbidden to use child labour.

More information on Fairtrade and Fairtrade products: www.fairtrade.org.uk