On Tuesday, Jan. 13, I received an email that included the following sentence: “By the end of 2015, and sooner when possible, all Harry Potter chocolate products sold at Warner Bros. outlets and throughout licensed partners will be 100-percent UTZ or Fairtrade certified”.
This is a sentence that many Harry Potter fans had been waiting years to read, and the way in which the changes were achieved is monumental; showing the power of fan communities to make change in the world. The fight to make Harry Potter chocolate a fair trade product has been a four-year struggle. The organization heading the effort is a nonprofit organization called the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA).
The alliance was formed in 2005 by comedian Andrew Slack, and band mates Paul and Joe DeGeorge, of the wizard rock band Harry and the Potters. The charity’s goal was to motivate Harry Potter fans to do social justice work through the lens of the story they cared about. They have organized campaigns focused on issues of LGBT rights, immigration reform and climate change, among others. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the HPA, together with the nonprofit Partners in Health raised more than $123,000 to send five cargo planes of supplies to help those affected by the earthquake.
The campaign to make Harry Potter chocolate fair trade began in 2011, when the last Harry Potter film was released. In the months leading up to the film’s release, the HPA highlighted a different injustice, or “horcrux”, to destroy. The first horcrux centered on starvation wages and the inhumane working conditions of much of the chocolate industry.
This campaign later morphed into “Not In Harry’s Name”, an on-going movement in which the HPA repeatedly reached out to Warner Bros. to ensure that all chocolate sold under the name of Harry Potter is ethically sourced and manufactured and the workers treated fairly. Slack reached out to Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer after an independent report assigned Harry Potter chocolate an “F” in human rights.The HPA collected signatures to send to Warner Bros., and fans created videos promoting the campaign. In June 2014, J.K. Rowling voiced support for the campaign as well.
Finally, on Dec. 22, 2014, Warner Bros. contacted the HPA informing the group of the company’s agreement to ensure that all Harry Potter chocolate would be fair trade by the end of 2015. This declaration marked a victory of a years-long battle. Through organizing, speaking up and working hard, Harry Potter fans have been able to accomplish what they set out to do.
However, making a specific chocolate fair trade is not going to fix all problems related to unethical working conditions or turn Warner Bros. into a completely guilt-free company. Warner Bros. still sells a multitude of other products that no doubt were manufactured by under-paid laborers, including a lot of other Harry Potter merchandise.
Nevertheless, this small step shows what is possible, and what can be accomplished. HPA proved that groups of organized individuals can make the world better and giant corporations do listen to consumers. After all, as J.K. Rowling once said, “We do not need magic to make the world better. We have all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”
The HPA imagined the world to be just a little bit better, and they accomplished it. Now, it’s time to continue this work and take another step forward.
