Ethical Consumer has been at the heart of the UK's ethical consumer movement for over 30 years. Simon Birch chats to co-editor and co-founder Rob Harrison about how Ethical Consumer was set up and what it stands for.

 

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 in 1989.

Back then the divisive Thatcher government had been in power for a decade, the apartheid regime still had South Africa firmly in its racist 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 Trades Unions increasingly turned to consumer boycotts and market-based campaigns to help achieve their goals.

 Ethical Consumer magazine was born against this turbulent backdrop with the aim of keeping track of this new upswing in radical activity and to help guide ordinary people towards making ethical product choices.

 Now more than 30 years later Ethical Consumer publishes a successful magazine and 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 clear goal is to help consumers shop ethically and to make global businesses more sustainable and ethical through consumer pressure.

 Every single day we have to rely on a number of items which we have to buy, whether that's food, energy 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 product guides which cover everything from bread to banks which use a rating system in 19 ethical and environmental categories.

We then produce an 'ethiscore' which gives shoppers easy to use information that identifies which are the best and worst performing companies.

These 'ethiscores' are essential as they help flag up which companies are guilty of greenwashing as some everyday products may be sold as being 'ethical', but in fact the company behind the product may not be.

Ethical Consumer now regularly updates around 120 shopping product guides with the most popular guides being current bank 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 ethical, we consider that the Best Buy Label helps shoppers make the right ethical choice.

 What's unique about the label is that it looks in detail at the ethical record of the company behind the product 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.

 

What ethical issues can we expect down the line?

It's clear that in the future the new technologies of robotics and artificial intelligence, particularly in the hands of profit-seeking corporations 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 occur.

For more information about Ethical Consumer’s work visit: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org 

An annual subscription to Ethical Consumer normally costs £34.50 but Georganics customers can now take advantage of a special discounted subscription of 14 months for the price of 12.

Subscribers have access to detailed ethical ratings of 1000s of brands helping you make the right choices every time you shop.

To ensure that you receive the discount donation please ensure that you write BBGeorganic in the notes fields on the order review page on the subscription pages. Visit: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/subscriptions

 

Georganics is proud to announce its #BestBuyLabel certification as of September 2024.