Let's Get Ethical!
The BuyEthical directory is willing to promote select products and services that actively advertise as 'Ethical'. There is no real scrutiny but we must give encouragement to businesses that subscribe to ethical policy.
We must lean towards Eco Friendly products, Vegan Foods, Fair Trade Craftsmen-ship, it makes great sense.
Being Eco Friendly or declaring your products to be Eco Friendly is a step in the right direction, generally it means something is safe for the environment and it's living beings. We think it's an attitude but if you are looking for standards there are hundreds of ecolabels (a type of product labeling that certifies the environmental performance of a specific product or service.) Ultimately from sourcing, manufacturing and sale of products it would be encouraging to know that the people behind these products and services truly care about our earth's environment and are making a difference that will hopefully reduce pollution, slavery, poor health and eliminate animal testing ..to say just a few reasons for the Eco-conciousness of the world.
More and more people are choosing to eat less meat and labeling themselves as vegetarians and many are becoming vegan and prefer to not to consume any animal-derived food products or ingredients. That's a good thing as there is plenty of nutrition in a diet of fruit and vegetables and less demand for intense farming of animals. Consumers in the United Kingdom deserve to be informed of the benefits of a Vegan Friendly diet. We need to work harder to highlight Vegan Food producers and their store's and especially give more attention to Vegan online stores throughout the UK.
Each purchase of a Fair trade product can make a real difference for farmers and workers around the world. "Fairtrade is a system of certification that aims to ensure a set of standards are met in the production and supply of a product or ingredient. For farmers and workers, Fair Trade means workers’ rights, safer working conditions and fairer pay. For shoppers it means high quality, ethically produced products." The Fairtrade Foundation license the use of the FAIRTRADE Mark in the UK to grow demand for Fair trade products and empower producers to sell to traders and retailers. We would love to see more Fairtrade products online to increase the awareness and help consumers make better purchases therefore build a stronger karma throughout the world.
It goes without saying that food grown organically is far better for our health but the word 'organic' stigmatizes produce as 'expensive' and in these hard times through 2023 it's difficult but not impossible to convince consumers to continue choosing organic produce, especially locally grown from specialist organic farms. It's still not good enough to choose 'non-GMO Project' because the truth is the label only verifies that a product doesn’t contain GMO (genetically modified organism) ingredients (or technically less than 0.9% GMOs). It's recommended you avoid non-GMO's at all costs, always choose Organic. What is the difference? Organic crops cannot be grown with synthetic pesticides, and contain much lower pesticide residues overall. The most widely-used herbicide on the planet – Glyphosate (Roundup) – is prohibited on organic crops. Organic ingredients aren’t processed with toxic hexane. Organic crops are prohibited from being fertilized with sewage sludge. Organic meat isn’t produced with growth-promoting drugs, like ractopamine. Organic animals aren’t fattened up with growth-promoting antibiotics. I think that's enough food for thought.