This article has been written to celebrate this year’s International Open Access Week (October 2025). The author is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Fair Trade, a Diamond Open Access publication started in 2018 as a response to the debate, division and argument around the diversification of approaches to fair trade and the lack of narrative and cohesion in thinking about what fair trade is, or what it should be.

The Journal of Fair Trade is published by Pluto Journals. The Journal has an inclusive and holistic approach: it is not trying to say what’s right, which practice, experience, or variant of Fair Trade is best, but to publish genuine and credible work on what is good and so help others to see, learn, apply these models, lessons and ideas. The Journal of Fair Trade is meant to be critical but inspiring too.

The main aim of the Journal of Fair Trade is to make a direct link between people who do things, and people who think about them and study them. We publish many voices: academics, producers, coop leaders, researchers, people practicing fair trade, campaigners and those whose efforts are pushing forward on the front line of ideals and practice. This is what is behind the motto of the Journal of Fair Trade: Action ≈  Practice ≈ Theory ≈ Justice which is also a recognition of the key role of knowledge creation in and informing strategies and actions for securing systemic change. 

Being Open Access means no paywalls or limits to geographic accessibility. Each article is licensed to us for Open Access use by the author(s) who retain their rights and copyright. There are no (Taylor) Swiftian dramas or battles for ownership and rights in the open access publishing space. 

Many non-academics and activists have been mentored into the Journal pages already, sharing their ideas, wisdom and knowledge. Each article has a mini-bio for the author(s) showing their work and experience, academic or not. The range of subjects published so far demonstrates this purpose and effort is working. Content is very broad and multidisciplinary: from fair trade software and legalised cannabis markets; African strategic branding; the varying responses of social enterprises and companies to workers’ situations during COVID; Maasai indigenous intellectual property rights, and the economic conditions of refugees, IDPs,  and vulnerable workers in the local and global economy; why fair trade principles are key to the European Green New Deal and explorations of perpetual market failures: Can Fashion Ever Be Fair? and Why do Coffee Farmers stay Poor? 

Hosting by Science Open and JSTOR Open Access platforms gives The Journal of Fair Trade a global reach and masses of data to illuminate this reach and the readership; and thereby gain insights into the traction of each article and the ideas and evidence it contains. Nearly 100 articles published so far by the Journal of Fair Trade have been accessed by >80,000 readers in all continents – for example:  Science Open data shows by country: from 1 in the Central African Republic to 99 in Argentina, 2,470 in China and 28,000 in the USA.  From JSTOR data we know in a highly granular way the type of setting: secondary school, community college, higher educational establishment or government office: suggesting many different types of readers also. JSTOR October 2025 data shows The Journal being read in 58 Zimbabwean Higher Education; 224 users in Ecuador Higher Education and almost 100 in Indonesia of which 4 are secondary schools! 

This opportunity to create, co-create, promote and share knowledge globally comes only with Open Access, and journal policies of inclusivity and an enabling culture.