Published: 23/09/2024
Ethical Consumer has been at the heart of the UK’s ethical consumer movement for over 30 years. Suma is a big supporter of the organisation and over 150 of our products are accredited with their stringent Best Buy Label. We spoke to Ethical Consumer’s Nadine Oliver about the organisation.
Can you tell us how Ethical Consumer came about?
Everyone can be a checkout campaigner. This belief that consumers can put ethics on their shopping list to help bring about positive change was the driving force behind the launch of Ethical Consumer magazine back in 1989. Back then the Thatcher government had been in power for a decade, the apartheid regime still had South Africa firmly in its grip and there was a growing realisation that the global environment was under increasing threat. With the government oblivious to calls to intervene, church groups, environmental campaigners and trade unions increasingly turned to consumer boycotts and market-based campaigns to help achieve their goals. Ethical Consumer magazine was born during this turbulent backdrop with the aim of keeping track of this upswing in radical activity and to help guide ordinary people towards making ethical product choices. Now, more than 30 years later, Ethical Consumer continues to publish a successful magazine supported by a detailed website, and is widely recognised as playing a crucial and influential role in the UK’s growing ethical consumer market.
So what’s the aim of Ethical Consumer?
Our goal is to help consumers make ethical purchasing decisions and to make global businesses more sustainable and ethical through consumer pressure. Every single day we consume items which we have to buy, whether that’s food, clothing or electricity. For every single purchase we can choose a company that aligns with our own values or one that doesn’t, it’s that simple.
How does Ethical Consumer work out what’s ethical?
At the core of Ethical Consumer’s work are our shopping guides which cover everything from bread to banks. We use a rating system which assesses companies against a range of ethical and environmental categories such as animals, climate, workers, company ethos and tax avoidance. We then produce an ‘ethiscore’ which gives shoppers easy to use information that identifies which are the best and worst performing companies for any particular shopping guide e.g. shampoo or toilet paper. These ‘ethiscores’ are essential as they help flag up which companies are guilty of greenwashing, as some everyday products may be sold as ‘ethical’, but in fact the company behind the product may not be. We believe it’s important to ‘follow the money’, so who the ultimate owner of a company is, and their policies, are important. Ethical Consumer regularly updates over 100 shopping product guides, including popular guides like chocolate, bank current accounts, supermarkets and clothing.
What’s your Best Buy Label scheme all about?
The Best Buy Label is a certification label scheme for everyday products and services that Ethical Consumer recommends as being the best ethical choice for shoppers. Whether you’re looking for an ethical bank or coffee company, the Best Buy Label is the gold standard for guaranteed ethical shopping. As a trusted name within the ethical business community, Ethical Consumer has now signed up almost 50 of the UK’s most ethical companies to the scheme, including Suma. With consumer product labels now appearing on an ever increasing number of products that claim to be ethical, we consider that the Best Buy Label helps shoppers make an informed ethical choice. What’s unique about the label is that it looks in detail at the ethical record of the company, plus the environmental and ethical record of the product itself. We believe that this approach helps shoppers avoid falling for ethical and environmental claims that turn out to be little more than greenwash. For example, a jar of coffee could be labelled as being organic, Fairtrade or both but be made by a controversial multi-national corporation and would never receive our Best Buy Label.
Tell us a bit about boycotts and how they work?
A boycott generally involves pledging not to buy from a company, based on a specific ethical issue. There are many reasons why we might want to avoid some corporations, from tax dodging to human rights violations. We’ve got lots of info about boycotts on our website including a complete list of current boycotts.
What ethical issues can we expect down the line? It’s clear that in future the new technologies of robotics and AI are going to throw up many difficult ethical issues. It’s almost certain that the ethical buying campaigns of the future will be engaged in trying to introduce some moral framework around the developments that are now taking place.
You also put on Ethical Consumer Week in November, can you tell us what this is?
Ethical Consumer Week is a great opportunity to share and discuss ethical issues with a wider network of individuals, organisations and businesses. Since the pandemic, our current format is four days of online events, with discussions led by experts in appropriate topics, and an in-person event on one day. Each year the week focuses on a different core theme. The events and discussions explore how we as individuals, businesses and governments can respond to the challenges of today. The day conference is being held in London and will include workshops, discussions, networking, stalls from ethical organisations and Best Buy companies, and a chance to meet like-minded people.
For more information visit www.ethicalconsumer.org