How to avoid funding war and exploitation?

Simmers26

I'm finding it increasingly hard to know where to spend my money.  Just canceled my spotify account due to their investment practices.  Found out this morning about exploitation of women on spanish farms where Lidl sources its produce. There doesn't seem to be one up to date resource which lists the unethical practices of retailers and services.  I, for one, would really appreciate this to help me decide where to spend my money. I'm not perfect, but trying to do the right thing and it appears that voting with your feet is the only way. If anyone knows how to find trusted sources of advice like this, or has any tips on how they have approached this themselves, i'd love to hear about it.

JKenH

That’s understandable that you want to do the right thing, but that means different things to different people. Without wanting to get political or take sides opinions can be very much divided as to what is the “right thing”, say, in relation to conflicts, or manufacturing decisions. Companies may be involved, for historical reasons, without consciously taking a stance one way or the other and it may be impossible for them to economically withdraw. Often a company makes a very good product that some may consider beneficial to the world yet the politics of the CEO offend. 

There is no universal definition of the right thing. It is not a black and white world we live in and while you may not approve of a CEO’s decision, there may be some who do. You’ve voted with your feet when it comes to the company you quoted and that, for you, is the right thing to do. I recently took a similar stance against a food retailer - it’s a political minefield to say much more and you might want to edit your post to something less specific (i.e without naming names.)

flaneurs_lobster

As @JKenH says above (and I paraphrase) "It's complicated".

I'd look at https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

a quick look at their current campaign list will probably tell you if your views are aligned (broadly) with theirs and if you want to engage with them.

There are ways to avoid inadvertent support for this kind of investment - buy local and small, try and make more use of second-hand and upcycled sources are a couple you might try.

Emmia

Simmers26 said:

I'm finding it increasingly hard to know where to spend my money.  Just canceled my spotify account due to their investment practices.  Found out this morning about exploitation of women on spanish farms where Lidl sources its produce. There doesn't seem to be one up to date resource which lists the unethical practices of retailers and services.  I, for one, would really appreciate this to help me decide where to spend my money. I'm not perfect, but trying to do the right thing and it appears that voting with your feet is the only way. If anyone knows how to find trusted sources of advice like this, or has any tips on how they have approached this themselves, i'd love to hear about it.

I think it's very difficult to completely avoid all exploitation in everything we buy or consume, and actually, how far do you take it?

If you bought a cotton t-shirt from a shop with "ethical credentials" is that applicable to the manufacturing of the t-shirt? The manufacturing of the fabric used to make the t-shirt? The growing of the cotton that goes into the fabric? How much work as a consumer are you willing to put into researching where everything you consume is made and how it is made?

Things like B Corp are supposed to show that things are made more sustainably or ethically - but this scheme is essentially "greenwashing" in my opinion. 

There's also the unfortunate fact that "sweatshops" employ people who often don't have other options for employment - companies moving factories from say Bangladesh to Myanmar because it's cheaper means that those people in Bangladesh have lost their work and income.

I don't want to be political, but having studied Corporate Social Responsibility it's really difficult in reality to be 100% ethical and sustainable all of the time.

MattMattMattUK

Emmia said:

Simmers26 said:

I'm finding it increasingly hard to know where to spend my money.  Just canceled my spotify account due to their investment practices.  Found out this morning about exploitation of women on spanish farms where Lidl sources its produce. There doesn't seem to be one up to date resource which lists the unethical practices of retailers and services.  I, for one, would really appreciate this to help me decide where to spend my money. I'm not perfect, but trying to do the right thing and it appears that voting with your feet is the only way. If anyone knows how to find trusted sources of advice like this, or has any tips on how they have approached this themselves, i'd love to hear about it.

I think it's very difficult to completely avoid all exploitation in everything we buy or consume, and actually, how far do you take it?

If you bought a cotton t-shirt from a shop with "ethical credentials" is that applicable to the manufacturing of the t-shirt? The manufacturing of the fabric used to make the t-shirt? The growing of the cotton that goes into the fabric? How much work as a consumer are you willing to put into researching where everything you consume is made and how it is made?

Things like B Corp are supposed to show that things are made more sustainably or ethically - but this scheme is essentially "greenwashing" in my opinion. 

There's also the unfortunate fact that "sweatshops" employ people who often don't have other options for employment - companies moving factories from say Bangladesh to Myanmar because it's cheaper means that those people in Bangladesh have lost their work and income.

I don't want to be political, but having studied Corporate Social Responsibility it's really difficult in reality to be 100% ethical and sustainable all of the time.

I think the problem is that ethics are complicated. I think that it is unethical that UK supermarkets pay UK farmers so little for the food to produce, most farmers lost money on producing milk and meat this year, most lost money on wheat, most just about broken even on rapeseed. Yet we have "Fairtrade" for a selection of farmers abroad, essentially pushing up food prices for UK consumers and in my opinion that scheme has quite a few issues.

You mention B-Corp, I looked at it for my own business and came to the same conclusion, you can score more than a third of the points needed to qualify just on the basis of who owns the business, you can score nearly two thirds of the required points for things that have nothing to do with the environment.

People keep buying goods from China with it's very questionable human rights record, they buy fruit that has been driven or even flown considerable distances, they buy bottled water rather than drink from a tap, they prioritise cheap food at the cost of huge environmental destruction.

Most people say that they want a more sustainable future, but unfortunately they expect other people to be the ones making changes, they expect other people to pay the cost of that, and most of all they want to be able to pat themselves on the back even though the thing they did is entirely pointless.

greenbee

Another vote for Ethical Consumer. But TBH I find the more I look into this the less I buy...