Ethical consumerism: challenge or diversion?
Ben Jackson is an Associate Director at Forster. He has 20 years experience in the voluntary sector, Whitehall and Westminster developing and leading strategies on issues like international development, housing and social exclusion.
‘Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet’, rails George Monbiot in a recent Guardian column, taking a side-swipe at the rising tide of ‘aspirational lifestyle journalism that makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country kitchens’ - but which diverts people from the central task of campaigning for political change.
Usually insightful, Monbiot is wrong on this one.
As more and more consumers swing behind Fairtrade and organic products – a quarter of ground coffee sold in the UK is now Fairtrade – the direct impact starts to mount up. Eight million farmers, workers and their families worldwide now gain from the better prices and conditions guaranteed through Fairtrade.
But the trend has much greater significance.
Through supporting the organic and Fairtrade movements, we help build living models of sustainable farming and fairer trade, subverting the “price-and-profit-at-all-costs” business logic.
What’s more, for all those people Monbiot warns are stuck in self-indulgent green consumer smugness, there are many, many more for whom buying Fairtrade or organic is a practical first step that empowers them down a path to further action. Witness the burgeoning Fairtrade towns, which are mobilising thousands of people within their local communities into campaigning on trade justice issues. Meanwhile, millions of ordinary people are prepared to put their money where their mouth is through the weekly shop, sending a powerful message to ministers and business leaders: Ordinary people want a different way of doing business, and expect politicians and big business to make sure it happens.
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, caused ripples last week by asking people to boycott (though he chose not to use that word) mainstream chocolate brands in protest at the alleged use of trafficked and child labour in cocoa-growing in countries like Cote d’Ivoire – and urged us to buy Fairtrade bars instead. Britain’s three chocolate giants may not like it much. But if lots of us took up the Archbishop’s ‘chocolate challenge’, then surely even their stubborn refusal to launch even one Fairtrade bar would start to crumble?
The bishop’s call reminds us how harnessing consumer power can be a powerful route to changing the world – not a side road diverting us along the way."