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Posts Tagged ‘Fair Trade’

Posted on October 8, 2008 - by Frank

The Strength of Co-operatives

When discussing Fair Trade and the use of co-operatives as a healthy business model in developing areas, I often get asked what a co-operative (co-op) is. Allow me to give an explanation here for people who may not have grasped an understanding of this business model before, and allow to me to share why I think it is a strong model for developing areas.

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Posted on September 15, 2008 - by Frank

Shopping Activism

There are a few different ways of referring to the topic of this article. Some refer to it using the mouthful – “Socially Conscious Purchases” or “Socially Aware Consuming”. Over at Phoenix and in many other places they’re calling it “Ethical Consumption”. I like that term, but love the subversive tone in “Shopping Activism” so am going to work with that.

Every purchase we make is an act that says something, whether we like it or not. When we speak through our consumption there are messages sent – whether we agree with the messages our consumption sends or not. When we spend money on a product, we are telling the supplier of that product that what we have purchased has value to us and that, in some sense, we appreciate them getting it to us. We are telling them that we want the supply of that product.

The message that we are also sending is that we are ok with whatever practices enabled that product to reach us as at the price that we paid for it. Now many of us might protest at this assumption because many of us don’t know what happened to enable the supply of that product from the beginning of that process to the point of purchase, but nevertheless, our purchase of any given product is a stamp of approval, even if that stamp has a degree (whether it be high or low) of ignorance attached to it.

Through our purchases, we enable companies to do what they do or adversely, by ignoring certain products, we very quickly put some companies out of business or force them to adjust their offerings to the market place to better meet demand and profit.

When we understand such market drivers and understand the basic concept that every purchase makes statements that say something to all those who choose to supply us with the products that we consume, we very quickly get a picture that shopping and consumption are inherently a form of activism. Sometimes that activism supports practices many of us would deem to be unethical, yet we act in support of such unethical practices often out of ignorance. We can change that.

Many of us aren’t in a position where we can uproot our lives to head into poverty stricken areas to serve the poor. Many of us shiver at the thought of entering one of the world’s slums even for a visit. Many of us don’t see ourselves as activists wanting to chain ourselves to trees to save the planet. Many of us can’t be bothered bugging our politicians with letters to compel them to act in the worlds greatest needs. Many of us just want to live our lives and feel like we’ve got enough on our plate just trying to get through life without having to worry about trying to cause tectonic shifts in the worlds problems as well. But with all that in mind, many of us still have a heart and many of us would still like to see the world become a better place. If that’s you then Shopping Activism is for you.

Shopping Activism only asks you to understand one thing and to do one thing with that new understanding. Shopping Activism asks you to understand that every purchase you make sends a message. That message might be about what’s ok and what’s not ok in how companies treat the environment or animals. That message might be about the use of cheap labour around the world; it might even be about human trafficking. The question is, what messages do you want sent by your purchases? Choose those messages and then buy accordingly. Choose products that support the messages that you want sent and ignore products that insult those messages. Send a message to companies that support your values that their products are in demand and send a message to the companies who do not, that they need to change their approach if they want you to support their products.

Become an ethical consumer; become a socially responsible purchaser; become a socially aware consumer; become a Shopping Activist and don’t passively send messages out of ignorance in support of values and ethics that do not align with your own.

If you want to know where you can purchase different products – leave a comment, tell us what you’re after and let’s see if we, as a small community reading this, can help each other find products that better align with our values.

To get started as a Shopping Activist, check out places like Good Books and Trade Aid.