Harriet Lamb

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(born 3 June 1961) is the CEO of the

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, a role she has held since May 2025. Lamb was previously the CEO of WRAP - a Climate Action NGO from March 2023. She was formerly the CEO of Ashden and of the peacebuilding organisation

International Alert International Alert is a global peacebuilding charity established in 1986. It aims to promote dialogue, training, research, policy analysis, advocacy, and outreach activities. The organization addresses the root causes of conflict by working wi ...

. From 2001 to 2012 she was executive director of the

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Fairtrade Foundation. Prior to this she was a leading campaigner for fair trade. In September 2012 she became chief executive officer of the global standards, certification and producer development organisation, Fairtrade International.

Background

Lamb was born in England, lived in India as a child and then grew up and was educated in the UK, taking a first degree in political science at Cambridge University and an MPhil at the Sussex

Institute of Development Studies An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

.The Independent
/ref> She has lived over six years in India including time working with poor landless labourers and with a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

of low-caste "untouchable" farmers selling grapes.

Fairtrade global agenda

She joined the Fairtrade Foundation after two years with Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), the Fairtrade umbrella body with responsibility for Fairtrade standards globally, in Bonn, Germany.p. i, "Fighting The Banana Wars and other Fairtrade Battles", Harriet Lamb, Under her leadership, Fairtrade has become one of Britain's most active

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...

social movement A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...

s. In 2008, sales of Fairtrade topped £700 million, with over 4,500 Fairtrade products available from cotton to coffee, face-cream to ice-cream. Harriet first heard about climate change from Fairtrade farmers who were having to deal with the devastating effects of climate change patterns. She had become convinced of the importance of Fairtrade while Head of Campaigns at the World Development Movement (WDM). While visiting Costa Rica with WDM in 1997 to investigate local banana plantations' use of the pesticide dibromochloropropane (DBCP), already banned in the US for making farm-workers sterile, she met a woman called Maria whose husband had been exposed to DBCP while working on the plantations. The couple had had a baby boy born with severe developmental abnormalities who died after a short and distressful life. In her book "Fighting The Banana Wars", Harriet Lamb describes how "''As we sat there and she showed me pictures of her baby, rage bubbled up inside me because the companies knew of the dangers of this chemical but they ignored them. I have never, ever forgotten Maria.''"pp. 6-7, "Fighting The Banana Wars and other Fairtrade Battles", Harriet Lamb, Previous campaigning activities include the UK Minimum Wage Campaign at the Low Pay Unit and for refugee rights. She has lived and travelled widely in the

developing world A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

. She was appointed a CBE in the 2006 UK New Year's Honours List for her contribution to Fairtrade. Other accolades include Cosmopolitan Eco-Queen 2008 and Orange Businesswoman of the Year 2008.

Personal life

A keen cyclist, she lives in South London. On Friday 14 January 2011, Harriet appeared for the first time on the BBC Radio 4 programme ''

Any Questions? ''Any Questions?'' is a British topical discussion programme "in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media, and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience". It is typically broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Fridays at 20: ...

'', alongside

Tim Montgomerie Timothy Montgomerie (born 24 July 1970) is a British political activist, blogger, and columnist. He is best known as the co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and as creator of the ConservativeHome website, which he edited from 2005 unt ...

, Emily Thornberry MP and

Sarah Teather Sarah Louise Teather (born 1 June 1974) is the Director of Jesuit Refugee Service UK and a former British House of Commons of the United Kingdom#Members and elections, Member of Parliament and Minister. As a Liberal Democrats (UK), Liberal Dem ...

MP.

Books

* ''From Anger to Action: Inside the Global Movements for Social Justice, Peace and a Sustainable Planet'' Harriet Lamb & Ben Jackson, Rowman and Littlefield, June 2021 * ''Fighting The Banana Wars and other Fairtrade Battles''. Rider Books, 2008.

Background

Fairtrade global agenda

Personal life

Books

References

Further reading