MY campaign team know me well. Among the many election debates, photoshoots and community visits, this week they fixed me up with an early-morning visit to Dear Green coffee roasters in Glasgow. This wasn’t just to make sure that I got my caffeine dose in good time to set me up for the day; Dear Green is an accredited Living Wage employer, and we’re keen to back businesses which positively welcome the campaign for decent wages. This is the kind of company Scotland can encourage more of. They clearly care about their product, sourcing from bean suppliers who audit each coffee farm for social and environmental practices. A commitment to the working conditions of their own employees sits clearly alongside fair treatment for the growers who produce the coffee beans.

The campaign for a Living Wage, a wage that is calculated according the living costs that people face and is adequate to ensure that they can live with dignity, has been a political cause since at least the 1880s. The name has been hijacked recently by George Osborne, whose “National Living Wage” is no such thing, merely an upper band on the minimum wage which will only apply to workers over 25 years of age. It still isn’t calculated according to living costs, and it will risk increasing the exploitation of younger workers.

But the basic case for a true Living Wage is still strong. Sectors such as retail and hospitality are notorious, as is the care sector. It’s a source of extraordinary injustice that work which is so vital to the wellbeing of people throughout our society has been so undervalued.

There are close to 800,000 carers in Scotland providing daily support to people of all generations, and they deserve decent pay as well as job security and the chance of career progression. Earlier this year Green councillors on Edinburgh City Council proposed a funded plan to pay a “Living Wage Plus” of £9 an hour to social care staff. Green MSPs will campaign for this to be introduced across Scotland to help local authorities recruit the best staff and retain those with experience. Care workers also deserve paid travel time, sick leave, skills training and an end to zero-hours contracts.

As well as professional care workers, improved support is also due to unpaid carers who look after family and friends. Power to increase the Carer’s Allowance will soon be devolved and Greens want a 50 per cent increase in payments to £93 a week.

Better pay for caring is possible, financed by progressive taxation rather than increasing care charges. As the IPPR think tank showed this week, the Green plan for income tax would raise more revenue than the SNP’s but crucially it would tackle inequality by giving lower earners a tax cut, in stark contrast to Labour’s across-the-board rise.

Far too many economic powers will continue to rest with Westminster, and the Labour Party should be held responsible for also blocking the devolution of more substantial welfare powers. But in both these areas Holyrood will now have significant scope for action, and it’s vital that we use those powers to encourage the kind of fairer, green economy so many of us want to see in Scotland. Everyone deserves access to satisfying, secure and rewarding work.

The SNP does deserve credit for its Fair Work agenda, which tries to bring together employers, employees and trade unions to encourage innovation, equality and workplace democracy as well as a “Business Pledge” for those employers who choose to pay a living wage, and avoid exploitative zero-hour contracts.

These aims are good, but the ambition must be bolder. The Scottish Government is still using taxpayers’ money to support tax-dodging companies, as well as those who have no interest in the principles in the Business Pledge.

The Scottish Greens’ manifesto commits to making publicly funded business support available only to those companies who pay the real Living Wage. We’d also ensure it did not go to those who use unfair zero-hours contracts, fail to recognise trade unions, and those who have no plan to reduce the gap between the highest and lowest paid. Public funds should not be given to firms who pay different rates to women and men doing the same jobs. Environmentally-harmful industries should not be receiving government support either.

As I travel around Scotland talking to voters about the need for more Green MSPs at Holyrood, many people recall the arguments two years ago about how we needed the power to build a better Scotland, and make a break from UK economic policies.

We can’t do everything independence would have made possible… yet! But with a bolder Holyrood Scotland can do business fairly, and convince many more people that a better Scotland is possible.