Q: Can we ever be ethical consumers?

I BLAME Al Gore. In our house we have adopted a policy of one light on per room. We have tried to reduce greenhouse gases by going through cupboards, tossing out aerosols in an attempt to reduce household emissions.

But can we as consumers ever be completely ethical?

While under the shower - as the four-minute timer reminds us to save water - do we check the labels on the shampoo to see if it is chemically acceptable, biodegradable and not tested on animals?

Let’s forget about free range eggs for a minute and the conscience-pricking miasmas of battery hens stuffed in cages measuring out their days in quotas of artificially induced brown-shelled eggs.

As much as supermarkets strive to be clean and green, they are cornucopias of additives and pesticide residues, artificial colouring and food harvested under slave labour conditions that sit beside environmentally friendly ungenetically modified products. Take coffee for example.

Ethically sourced coffee is gaining traction with consumers. Fair trade coffee sounds ethically acceptable.
In principle, fair trade coffee works on that little thing called ethical consumer guilt. According to fair trade coffee advocates, as coffee is grown in the sub-tropical and tropical regions of the world, 25 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. Under fair trade, those who harvest the coffee beans are paid a fair wage. Moreover, sales of fair trade products account for about $8 million in Australia.

Then there is chocolate. Consumers concerned with the ethics of how cocoa beans are harvested might have to reconsider whether eating chocolate is ethical.

According to the British charity, Stop the Traffik, 240,000 children are in forced labour on Africa’s Ivory Coast. The beans grown there are bought by big chocolate companies and account for about half of the world’s chocolate.
If consumers want to check out whether what they are buying is ethically sound, they can look at the label and do some research of their own.

While the intention to shop ethically is laudable, it is often hard to fill a supermarket trolley with ethically acceptable items.

So what do shoppers who want to buy ethically need to consider and how can they be sure they are acting in the best interests of the environment or people such as coffee harvesters?

The Sustainable Living Foundation, a national organisation based in Melbourne, has data bases on which consumers can check out companies. The SLF grades the companies according to ethical considerations such as their position on environmental and social matters including investment in weapons and tobacco, animal treatment and business ethics.

Ethical consumerism, frustratingly difficult to wholly achieve, is still perhaps more subtle than putting a packet of fair trade coffee in your basket. Ethical shopping is about more than just thinking in the here and now. People want to be sure their choices will not adversely affect the less fortunate.

Small decisions can have a big impact, so Steve Carey, head of public affairs at World Vision says.

But while consumers may want to buy ethical as well as green and pesticide-free products, it is doubtful whether this is possible. That Australian icon, Vegemite would seem to be ethically acceptable.

Well, maybe not to some. It is owned by Kraft foods. Kraft’s parent company is Altria, which also owns Phillip Morris. And Phillip Morris is one of the world’s largest cigarette manufacturers.
The problem with ethical consumerism is that it is a multi-layered activity.

It is not just as simple as buying free range eggs or fair trade coffee. While these may salve a troubled conscience, digging to find the ethical pay dirt usually reveals strata after strata of businesses and not all of them are necessarily ethically motivated.

Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer