However, last night we found this: www.ethicalconsumer.org A website produced by ECRA (Ethical Consumer Research Association) where you can look up anything that you want to buy from baked beans to laptops and it will give you information about the different manufacturers.
Good Points:
- It's really, really easy to use there is even a video guide to explain all the ratings if you get stuck.
- As everybody's ethics are different, you can customise what is important for you e.g. environment, people, politics etc.
- Different brands are given an "ethical rating" and presented on a really straightforward table (scorecard) with in-depth information if required.
- You can see which companies are owned by who
- There is a mobile-friendly version so you can use it when you are out and about.
- It is run as a co-operative
- You have to pay! As a not for profit co-operative I presume they have to fund themselves somehow. However it's only £29.95 for the year, you get a magazine on-line or hard copy and you can do a 30 day free trial (although you have to pay first to get this)
- Not every brand is represented (although they do track over 30,000 companies)
- This has been around since 1989 as a worker's co-operative, it became a not for profit multi stakeholder co-operative in 2009.
- It appears to be endorsed by some really big names such as Friends of the Earth, WWF, Rainforest Foundation, Comic Relief etc.
- Ratings are updated regularly and links are provided to evidence.
I'm already obsessed with it :)
There's me using Body Shop thinking they are an ethical company that doesn't test on animals - turns out they are now owned by Nestle who have the worst ECRA rating for animal cruelty, serious issues around human rights...and the list goes on - ha!
Think this might be a bit of an eye opener!!
No comments:
Post a Comment