Adventures in Ethical Shopping

The Washington Post has an interesting feature article on "Ethical Shopping". It can be difficult for the shopper to make sure that they are supporting truly ethical companies, might it be better to go for the lowest price producers? With the savings generated from low-cost shopping, one can then contriubute directly to the charities and causes that one values.

That's why I prefer the term "Mindful Shopping": it communicates the need to be conscious consumers. If we believe that the true cost of production should reflect our environmental and social justice concerns, we consumers will have to allocate a portion of our purchase dollars to support those companies that reflect those values. We also need to devote time to learn more about what we are buying. That's why I believe it is best to start slow and with a short list of products and staples.

Using buying power to improve the world is a growing commitment among consumers in this country, according to the rug sellers at the Mennonite church, who told me that increasing numbers of customers ask well-informed questions about the conditions under which their purchases had been made. And it has become big business in Europe, where a fair trade consumer guarantee was launched almost 20 years ago under the Dutch label Max Havelaar. The aim back then was to replicate the moral mindset that charities like Jakciss had fostered around niche handcraft markets and take it mainstream. According to the umbrella group Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) , there are now fair trade initiatives in 20 countries, including the United States, for such staples as cocoa, chocolate bars, orange juice, tea, honey, sugar and bananas as well as the ur-currency of the fair trade world -- coffee. Between 2002 and 2003, sales of these goods grew by 42.3 percent worldwide. But there is also controversy brewing about just who's profiting from the guilt-charged spending habits of the Western world's consumers.

... That, at least, is the contention of conservative commentator Philip Oppenheim, who argued recently that in Britain, it's supermarkets that profit most from fair trade sales. They charge a premium for fair trade bananas, for example, while a "minuscule sliver ends up with the people the movement is designed to help," he writes. I'm not sure whether he's right. And that's the root of the problem: I'm a consumer, not a trade expert. I'm more interested in finding fresh fruit than in investigating profit margins as I swoop bananas into my shopping cart. But if he is right, Europe's experience may be a warning. A Wall Street Journal story last year, about misleading labeling by some companies here, said that Cafe Borders adjusted its pricing after it was suggested that the company might be taking advantage of consumers' charitable instincts.

... But I'm left with a conundrum. I want to do the right thing, but I'm not prepared to make a career of it. It's not hard to find criticisms online about the Body Shop, for example; it's much harder to verify them. And I'm much less interested in checking out the story behind the bananas I buy than I am in the origin of those origami ornaments. What's more, despite efforts by nonprofits like TransFair and the International Fair Trade Association or IFAT (which monitors companies like Ten Thousand Villages), there's a lot of room for misleading labeling in our ethical shopping baskets. So when it comes to my food shopping in particular, I'm left wondering whether I would be doing just as much good if I simply bought the best bargain and sent the money I had saved to a development charity (as Oppenheim would have me do). Best of all might be to buy locally whenever possible, like my brother.