Ethical Consumerism

Just had another instalment in our series of lectures and seminars on consumerism. Really interesting in terms of highlighting our lack of understanding of whether something is as ecologically and ethically sound as the advertising and manufacturers make out. Many companies, Primark being one that comes to mind, are accused of creating a 'Halo Effect'. This meaning that they implement very small measures such as ensuring that one product out of hundreds of others is made with organic cotton or from Fairtrade farmers so as to give the consumer the impression of a company involved in ethical initiatives. We had a seminar on Ethical Consumerism shortly after this lecture and were each given an initiative or charity to do a SWOT analysis of (very useful analysis I wasn't familiar with that categorises strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). I was given the Ethical Trading Initiative, which seeks to make substantial improvements in the lives of poor working people around the world by developing, and encouraging the use of, a set of standards in trade. This is known as the ETI Base Code, a set of guidelines that constitutes the minimum standards that members have to adhere to in the workplace, http://www.ethicaltrade.org/eti-base-code. Whilst this is definitely a step in the right direction for the member companies, there are several drawbacks. For one, the ETI is almost a victim of its own success; it has 40 major companies under its wing that combined have a revenue of several hundred million. Just to give an idea of the number of workplaces ETI therefore has to monitor, Gap which is one of its members currently manufactures clothes in 300 factories spanning 50 countries worldwide. It is thus very difficult to ensure workers' rights at every stage of the supply chain. Furthermore, the improvements made by companies can be very gradual as they are only required to submit a report of their movements related with ETI once a year. They can also afford to make changes in some factories and not others and simply highlight the ones they have made. There had recently been a general feeling that the ETI hasn't fulfilled the hopes of many in terms of making change; when it was set up ten years ago people believed it would be very efficient in changing working conditions. Nowadays it seems more like a shield for major companies to prevent further investigations into every stage of their supply chain. Having said that, the ETI can address many thorny issues that the company could not tackle on their own. As most companies don't actually own the factories in which their clothes are manufactured and they simply contract with garment manufacturers round the world, it means they don't know how to approach issues within these factories. By this I mean that if they found children working in a supplier's worksite, they might be inclined to evict them and think that  they've addressed the situation. This is not the case as it could paradoxically make the lives of the children worse; the ETI could very quickly pinpoint who they needed to have discussions with and address the situation in a more appropriate manner. They can collaborate with NGO and Trade Unions to make workers feel as comfortable going to work with the reassurance that they have rights as you or I would.