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Socially Conscious Shopping
JebusUD
Adventure!Candy IslandRegistered User regular
Adventure!Candy IslandRegistered User regular
I am looking to find some kind of guide book or website that has condensed research on companies and stores on their social responsibility. Basically I am trying to smarten up my shopping habits, and make sure that I am not supporting things that I would find morally reprehensible.
Any tips or pointers?
Any tips or pointers?
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
but they're listening to every word I say
JebusUD on
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I approve of this kind of thing as well. Anything like this is welcome.
but they're listening to every word I say
make locally produced food as large a part of your diet as possible
this is the easiest (though not necessarily cheapest) way of doing this
but they're listening to every word I say
Take an inventory of what brands you like to buy now and then just do the research. Supposedly American Apparel is pretty decent on the labor and environmental front.
Here's an article with some general advice:
http://www.googobits.com/articles/p0-491-practical-ways-to-avoid-sweatshop-clothing.html
For 2008, the official inductees of the Sweatshop Hall of Shame listed by the International Labor RightForum are: American Eagle, Carrefour, Cintas, Dickies, Disney, Guess, Hanes, New Era, Speedo, Tommy Hilfiger, Toys “R” Us, and Wal-Mart.
You can also check here
http://www.sweatfree.org/resources
You're going to also have to do research on environmental aspect of it too and make your own venn diagram and see what overlaps.
Go trolling the internet for farmer's markets and CSAs in your area, though CSAs are ramping down for the season unless you live somewhere really temperate. Buy a chest freezer if you can and network with farmers at the farmer's market to see who sells quarter/half/whole animals for meat. If you're lucky and live near a large Amish or Mennonite community, they usually sell a ton of produce for dirt cheap, $5 will get me 6 1/2lbs of peaches or 9lbs of organically grown local tomatoes or a metric asston of zucchini, squash, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplant. Getting local produce, dairy, and meat becomes a lot about networking both online and off.
we've also got an excellent app for this but i think it's oriented primarily to the australian market so it might not help you
Also apparently it doesn't taste as good as non-organic, at least according to Penn and Teller BULL@#$%'s survey.
Yeah, I had figured as much. I think a bunch of it is about marketing stuff to hipsters at increased prices. However, I have been able to find some non-organic free range cage free chicken eggs that seem to check out.
That better world shopping guide looks pretty nice. Maybe I will pick that up. Will also check out this brand karma thing.
but they're listening to every word I say
This. Back in the 70's and 80's Nestle was trying to encourage poor women in third-world countries to purchase infant formula, instead of breast-feeding (which is more efficient, more cost effective, and arguably safer).
Several people I know boycotted all Nestle products because of this, and still maintain the boycott today. I don't know if Nestle has changed its practices since then, but this is the kind of dedication one needs to do something like you are trying to do.
I, personally, am considering not purchasing any stainless steel made in China, because all the stainless steel I have bought from that country has rusted.
Also, what Cabsy and Mr Monroe said.
Food that you buy at a farmer's market can be slightly more expensive than food in a supermarket, but if you buy at a market, direct from the farmer, then all of the money you paid for the food goes directly to the farmer.
If you buy from a supermarket, most of the money you pay goes to the supermarket, and to the shipping company, and the pittance left over goes to the farmer... if the grocery store even buys from small local farmers, and not the large factory farms.
Fun fact: Speaking of Nestlé, they rank Nestlé the worst company in the food industry, with the lowest score in every category (environment, human rights, labor, ethics & governance, health & safety). Apparently this summer Nestlé has started a project to advertise their products to the tribal communities of the Amazon Basin.
I agree with this. The only thing I'd say you have to get organic is lemons and only if you are using the rind/zest extensively, as the rind is hard to scrub totally clean. But at a farmer's market you're mostly going to find things that end up being organic by accident; I certainly don't go looking for organic tomatoes, but most of the Amish produce just sort of turns up that way. Fun fact: in my area, the amish and mennonites sell their mass produce at auction, and kroger is a large buyer of their goods, so I can drive 30 miles to Kroger and buy the same exact "organic produce" for 4-8x as much, or I can go two miles up the road and get it for $.25 a pound. This is why networking and putting work in as far as food goes can actually save you money, depending on the area where you live.
Wow, um, ha, that's, uh, interesting.
On the other hand, buying things produced in third world countries where the people make a living wage could be considered equally important from a global perspective.
They did it because their employees were committing suicide in droves.