Weekend Book Review: The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience
There are layers upon layers of complex issues to be faced when one deals with a question of grave importance such as, "What coffee should I buy this morning?" Ethics are hard to keep straight when so much of the information about a product is a mix of marketing, spin, and carefully crafted image. The truth is often well concealed (and usually deliberately so). To be a conscientious consumer is not easy, with the marketplace stacked against any revelation of the truth the way that it is.
The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience
The Issues section looks at five approaches to ethical decisionmaking: Going green, Fair trade, Boycotts, Selective shopping, and Buying locally. The authors recognize the complexities in all of these issues, and point out the (sometimes conflicting and contradictory) arguments that can be made about deciding one way or another. In most circumstances, they lay out the different viewpoints, but do not offer any definitive answer, because no such solution exists.
"Once you start thinking about all the positive and negative implications of what you buy and use, it quickly becomes clear that there's no one-size-fits-all approach — no simple list of moral checks and crosses. For one thing, there are always conflicting priorities. Is it better, for instance, to support the local independent cafe around the corner, or buy a fairly traded cup from the global chain across the road? Is it "ethical" to favor local products — doing your bit to limit envionmentally harmful transportation — or does that mean harming impoverished countries that are eager to export?"
The middle section on Products & companies collects information about all manner of products and services, and examines the various concerns and tradeoffs involved in searching for the most ethical choice in a given category. More detailed discussion of particular issues for a given topic. Food is a multifaceted topic, and the discussion includes issues such as the use of antibiotics, by catch in fishing, organic standards (and alternatives to the 'organic' label), vegetarianism and the humane treatment of animals, genetically modified organisms, and more are all discussed.
For example, in many cases, the terms we think are indicative of preferred products may not be as meaningful as we believe. "Free range" poultry, for example, conjures a vision of chickens wandering a barnyard, but "in theory, a coop or stall door could be opened for five minutes a day to satisfy such minimal requirements." We can make well-meaning choices, but what we are actually supporting may be a very different thing. It is difficult to know all of these things, because so much energy is spent to convince us of some beautiful image, rather than the truth of the situation. With fuller knowledge, we can make more meaningful choices.
Clothing, money matters, household goods (including cleaning products, furniture, toys, and more), and transportation are all covered in greater depth, as well. Most topic areas have a few listings for websites of suppliers and producers of products or sources for further information.
The final Find out more section is a brief collection of resources for gathering further information and a little bit of information about how to research a company. The websites and books and magazines listed may have some usefulness, but this is more of an addendum than a crucial part of the book.
There is a lot of good information in this book. It is less the sort of thing one should read cover to cover than it is a reference to keep on hand. If many of these concepts are still fresh with you, it is likely to be too much to absorb all at once. The authors do a very good job of pointing out the differing opinions and the tradeoffs involved in these choices, because none of this is black and white. Rather than feeding pat answers, this is a book that will prick at your conscience, and help you to address those decisions you make as a consumer and as a citizen with more thought and care.
