Competition, consumerism andconsumption are key ingredients in theAmerican way of life. ConsciousLiving’s North American Editor, ScottMcCulloch reports on the growthmarket for products that are clean,green and not mean.

When Anita Roddick launched the ubiquitous BodyShop she could not have foreseen the controversy

surrounding the sale of her wildly successful retailnetwork nor how far so-called ethical consumerism hascome in the past 30 years. Consumers were urged toboycott the retailer in March as Roddick was accused ofselling out her principles to the world’s biggest

cosmetics company. Dame Anita and her husbandGordon will earn £130 million (AU$320 million) fromthe £652.3 million sale of their company to L’Oreal.Animal rights activists and ethical shopping proponentssaid she was abandoning the values on which the BodyShop was founded. Roddick denied the deal was sellingout. “I’m ecstatic,” she said. She admitted there was anideological clash over animal testing, but insistedL’Oreal was phasing out its reliance on such methods.Controversial as the Body Shop sale was in the UK, thetransaction raised few eyebrows in America, whereethical consumerism, though gathering pace, is stillrelatively embryonic. Given the enormity of theirmarket, US consumers are at best indifferent to the new-fangled Fair Trade and organic products that have madelong and steady inroads in key EU states. That’s not tosay bargain-hungry Americans scoff at the concept ofsocially responsible consumption. Indeed, organicproducts are in vogue.

Shopping activism in the US hashelped return $67 million to fairtrade farmers and farm workersthroughout Latin America, Africaand Asia since 1999

DO YOUbuy with aconscience?By Scott McCulloch

22|CONSCIOUSLIVING Issue 74

The Ethics of Organics

But just how organic is organic? Ronnie Cummins,executive director of the Organic Consumers Association,is deeply sceptical. Last month Cummins called on USconsumers to boycott milk brands that claim to beorganic while routinely importing calves fromconventional farms and raising the animals in intensiveconfinement, with little or no access to pasture.“American consumers buying products labelled ‘organic’do not realise that they are often being scammed bysome of the larger companies who put pictures of happilygrazing cows on their products, but in reality keep theircows confined in ways very similar to traditional factoryfarms,” he says.

The good news is that US demand for organicproducts is exceeding supply. The problem saysCummins, is that unscrupulous companies are moving tolower organic standards and import billions of dollars oforganic foods and ingredients from overseas suppliers suchas China, where workers’ standards are poor and organiccertification standards are questionable. “We are calling onconsumers to boycott these bogus organic products andgive their consumer dollars to ethical producers who areupholding strict organic standards.”

Easier said than done. Yet ethical shopping, it seems, ison a roll. But could it be that the middle classes areindulging themselves, not the Third World?

In Harvey Nichols, the chic London shop, the label ona pair of Loomstate jeans reads “100% organic”. When didjeans become an ethical issue? The cotton, it turns out, isgrown by Turkish farmers who do not use herbicides,pesticides or synthetic fertilisers and so avoid contaminatingdrinking water or killing local wildlife. Then they arestitched in Tunisia before being shipped to the UK viaIreland. “It’s important to know that they travel by boat,”says a Harvey Nichols spokesman. “Air miles are thedevil.” Really? Two tags dangle from these ethically soundjeans. One reads: “Sustainability is the way forward.” Theother is the price: an eye-watering £160. How much, onewonders, did those Turkish farmers get?

The Cost of a Conscience

So, this is ethical consumerism, where our social

conscience is colliding with our common sense. Thefigures, meanwhile, seem impressive. Shopping activismin the US has helped return $67 million to fair tradefarmers and farm workers throughout Latin America,Africa and Asia since 1999, according to TransFair, theUS regulator for Fair Trade certification. Without fairtrade, supporters say, some farmers have no access tomarket information and can often be duped into sellingto middlemen at below-market prices or, if prices fall,can be forced to quit farming.

Fair trade is all well and good, but in America thecustomer is king. And consumers have long beenaccustomed to rock-bottom prices for quality goods,whatever the circumstances of their origin. So is thecollective shopping psyche in affluent Americans reallymorphing into something truly benevolent? Possibly, saysDallas Morning News columnist Joanna Jemison. “Dothese people with wallets stuffed with platinum cardsknow if the diamonds poised on their fingers fundedwarring factions in Africa?” The short answer is yes.Ethical issues are influencing purchasing decisions ofaverage Americans.

Organic and fair-trade clothes buyers say they feelgood about their fashion. But the feel-good factor comes ata price. Coffee drinkers who look for the black and whitecertified Fair Trade logo can expect to pay up to $10 –about double the average cost – for a pound of theirfavourite brew. The idea is that their conscience will besoothed as they hope the extra dollars will go to strugglingfarmers. Despite good intentions, most consumers whoshop according to their social convictions do not knowhow much of their money makes it to the people theyhope to help. Critics say too many fair trade dollars windup in the pockets of retailers and middlemen, includingnon-profit organisations. But organisations involved in fairtrade say the benefits do trickle down. Paul Rice, chiefexecutive of TransFair, says programmes eliminate as manyas five middlemen – a local buyer, miller, exporter, shipperand importer – and allow farmers to deal directly with anAmerican wholesaler. “It is empowering farmers to create apowerful export business,” he says. “When they do that,they can make dramatically higher prices, often two tothree times higher.”

CONSCIOUSLIVING Issue 74|23

The US market for organic food is worth more than $10 billion a year, but 90% of revenue derives from just26% of the population. The Natural Marketing Institutehas identified four types of buyers. Which one are you?

Devoteds 9.3% Frequently buy organic products.Temperates 16.7% Trying to fit organics into their lifestyle. Dabblers 3.8% Occasional buyers of organic products.Reluctants 70.3% Know the benefit of organic products butnever buy.

Source: The Natural Marketing Institute

Organics are gaining wider appeal in America

24|CONSCIOUSLIVING Issue 74

Ethics is in Fashion

Meanwhile, more consumers are consideringconditions under which clothing is made. Were the workerstreated well? Were they paid fairly? These issues arebecoming part of the larger debate on ethical consumerism,says Rebecca Calahan Klein, president of OrganicExchange, a resource centre in Berkeley, California. As foreveryday consumers bent on bagging a bargain – whateverthe hidden human costs – the tide is turning. NutritionistKaren Ialapi thinks modern American life has moved too farfrom the earth. She frowns at the mention of processedfoods and praises the European fondness for freshvegetables. A former corporate health consultant, she isbuilding a consulting business and working part time at aWhole Foods organic market. When she wandered into aKansas City organic clothing boutique three years ago, shewas intrigued. She touched the soft fabrics and heard aboutcotton produced without chemicals. It was a turning point.Since then, she has transformed her wardrobe, bit by bit, toorganics. Ialapi is one of anemerging breed of consumers whoare making purchasing decisionsbased on ethical issues beyond theaesthetics and value of the clothes.As much as they want to look good,they like the feeling they are doinggood with consumer dollars. “Justtake one step,” Ialapi urges.

Buy synthetics, says Ann Rowan, director ofsustainability at Canada’s David Suzuki Foundation, andyour carbon footprint grows. “Clothes that are made fromsynthetic materials, which are based on chemicals andpetroleum products, produce pollution problems that arebad for us and for nature.”

The solution? Organics. Companies like Oqoqo hope tocorner the market for consumers with a conscience. Theretailer’s garments are made from “Boolux”, abamboo/lycra blend and “Soyla”, a soft soy blend it calls“vegetable cashmere”. One jacket consists of hemp andrecycled plastic. Oqoqo, which intends to expand intoChicago, Montreal and Calgary, says its garments are 75%natural, organic or sustainable.

The company’s efforts may be aggressive but Americansare taking a more leisurely pace into the sociallyresponsible market. For example, organic farming remains asmall part of the cotton industry. Out of 40 million farmersaround the world, about 25,000 are organic farmers,according to Organic Exchange. Less than two-tenths of 1%of the world’s cotton is grown organically. It is a niche

market, says Ira Livingston, senior vice president forconsumer marketing with Cotton Inc, an industry tradegroup dedicated to cotton promotion. Organic cotton is a$50 million industry, he says, compared with the $266billion cotton market. But demand for organic cotton is onthe rise, increasing 300% the past three years, Klein says.And the number of US brands that offer organic cotton hasgone from less than 100 in 2002 to more than 250currently.

The natural-fibres market is following in the footstepsof organic food, say supporters. Shari Keller, a clothingdesigner in North Carolina who uses natural-cottonfabrics made in India in her clothing collection, believesher products are going mainstream. It is still just a fractionof the $173 billion US apparel industry. Cummins of theOrganic Consumers Association says the key to buildingthe business has been educating consumers on theconditions most clothes sold in America are made under.“Nine times out of 10, people don’t realise what they’re

wearing was made in asweatshop,” he says. “But that’schanging. It’s still got a way to go.It’s still where organic food was insales volume 10 years ago.”

Leading the charge is anunlikely designer – U2’s Bono. Heand his wife, Ali Hewson, havejoined designer Rogan Gregory to

create a brand called Edun that pledges higher standardsfor workers by hiring family-run businesses in Africa andSouth America to sew garments. Their Edun jeans, justone part of the collection, are sold at Saks Fifth Avenuestores. And guilt-ridden consumers can, of course, salvetheir consciences with Bono’s American Express RedCard, which has been marketed in a celebrity advertisingcampaign that featured Scarlet Johansson and ClaudiaSchiffer. The card is part of Project Red, Bono’s scheme todonate funds to help fight Aids in Africa. Cardholders aretold that 1% of whatever they spend is donated to Bono’sGlobal Fund. As this tithe rises to 1.25% if they spendmore than $5,000 in a year, the card is an incentive tospend more. That is fine for commerce and Third WorldAids victims; but what about climate change if shopping isthe path to environmental destruction? “The first casualtiesof climate change will be in equatorial countries in theThird World,” says Neil Adger of Britain’s Tyndall CentreFor Climate Change Research. So the Red card, like somuch else, becomes yet another Catch 22 of ethical living.Ethics, who wants them?

“Nine times out of 10, peopledon’t realise what they’rewearing was made in asweatshop,”

• Fair trade products available in Australia andNew Zealand include coffee, tea, herbal teas,chocolate, drinking chocolate, cocoa, rice andsugar.

• Purchasing fair trade products supportsbetter work conditions and equity in internationaltrade.

• Between 2001 and 2002, fair-trade labeled

sales across the world grew by 21.2%.

• In Australia and New Zealand in 2003 therewere only 6 fair trade products available, nowthere are more than 50.

• Since products carrying the fair-trade symbolwere introduced to Australia and New Zealand in2003 sales of products have doubled everyquarter.

Most Australian consumers don’t realise that they do havean option to add fair trade products to their shopping trolleys.

For more information on fair trade, locating suppliers,retail stores and brands go to www.fta.org.au/locator

Fair TradeDown Under Look out for this logo: