Fair Trade from South Africa: EZA Fairer Handel visits solar glass production

The Sonnenglas has been available in German and Austrian worldshops for many years. And for good reason: as a fair trade product, it offers 65 men and women job prospects. In April, our partner from Austria, EZA Fairer Handel, visited the home of the Sonnenglas solar lantern and inspected our production facilities in Johannesburg.

Sonnenglas has always been produced under fair and transparent conditions in South Africa. It all started with a handful of employees at our production plant in the south of Johannesburg. Because the South African sun glass, as it is called here in Europe, now lets the South African sun shine in many countries outside the rainbow nation, more and more people have been hired for production, which is still done by hand today.

Worldshops in Germany and Austria also have the fair trade solar lamp in their programme. EZA, a pioneer of fair trade in Austria, is one of the solar glass trading partners in the Alpine nation. "The Sonnenglas is the most successful handicraft product in our range," says Julian Fellner, who visited the Sonnenglas production facility in April as part of a trip to South Africa alongside other EZA partner organisations. The programme of the four-day visit to Johannesburg included a tour of the Sonnenglas production facility and glass production as well as numerous discussions with employees on site.

EZA regularly visits its trading partners to gain an impression of the production conditions and to check whether the fair trade criteria are being met. Julian Fellner from EZA was impressed by the conditions in Sonnenglas production and praised the professionalism, fair working conditions and equipment. During the so-called EFTA assessment by EZA, the organisation not only checks whether wages and working conditions comply with the principles of fair trade and the conditions in the respective country. It also checks the environmental protection measures, assesses the extent to which specifications and processes are documented and obtains an overview of whether the employees can get involved and whether the company works transparently and democratically.

A visit to the local glass production facility for solar glass was also on the programme.

Although it was already cool and autumnal in South Africa in April, it got really hot again at the end of the visit during the tour of the Sonnenglas glass production facility. During a walk between the factory's furnaces, it became clear how the sustainable material glass for the Sonnenglas lantern is produced, which incidentally consists mainly of recycled glass.

Numerous discussions took place during the four-day visit to the Sonnenglas production facility.At the end of the visit, which lasted several days, Julian Fellner from EZA Fairer Handel presented the results in the presence of Sonnenglas and the employees and analysed them together. Fellner attested Sonnenglas and its production particularly sustainable and fair trade and praised the great commitment of the small company and the joint endeavours to continuously expand this. The final verdict was a thoroughly positive one. "I am very impressed by the production conditions, the standards, the human interaction and the opportunities that Sonnenglas and Suntoy offer their employees," Fellner concluded.

Autor: Daniel Hufeisen