Is It Possible to be an Ethical Consumer?

Someone asked me in the comments once to write about my attempts to buy ethical fashion. I, of course, am not organized to write down WHO asked for this or WHEN, but someone did. Here's my attempt to make sense of a disorganized system.  Edit: I FOUND IT!! Shelly asked for me to do it in the comments on a guest post I did for Elisabeth's blog. See the post here. 

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I'm about to spoil The Good Place, a television show that's last season was four years ago. If you don't want to hear what I have to say about it, don't read any further. 

Random photo of Zelda just so people don't get accidental spoilers.

Basically, it turns out in the show that no one has gotten into The Good Place for centuries because there is no way to live morally in our modern society. Now, the show then goes forward and shows that people can develop morally in the afterlife, blah, blah, blah, but since I don't believe in the afterlife, the part about not being able to live ethically in this modern world has really stuck with me. Is there a way to live morally? 

It honestly feels like I have done nothing but destroy this planet since the moment I have been born. So this is the kind of thing I think about when I make any type of decision.

• Is having a housecat morally defensible? I mean, she's cared for, but would her life be better if she had freedom? If I let her outside, she will destroy wildlife, so that's not ideal, either.
• Is eating these grapes from Mexico worth it? Were the people who harvested the grapes treated well? Were the transportation costs/environmental impact worth it?
• Is reading Harry Potter again ethically problematic? 
• Is buying X, Y, or Z sustainable? 
• Should I drive my car to work or try to ride my bicycle? Will the change to the environment be worth all the hassle for me?
• If I buy a new piece of technology, what rare mineral has been mined in a dangerous way?

So, as you can imagine, every decision is fraught in our house, especially new purchases. I have mentioned that I try to buy ethical fashion, but what does that mean?  It's complicated.

There are a lot of ways to think of something as being "ethical." I focus mostly on human labor and environmental impacts. Your criteria might differ wildly from mine.

Human Labor

In 2013, a fast fashion factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing over 1000 people. It was at this point that I started paying attention to what I was buying in stores and started asking myself the following questions.

• Are garment workers working in safe, humane conditions?
• Are garment workers being paid a living wage?
• Are garment workers allowed to unionize?
• Is child labor used?

Environment

There is pervasive greenwashing being done by companies out there. Greenwashing is when organizations (this can be companies, brands, governments, or any organization) pretend their practices are more sustainable or eco-friendly than they are. 

• Does the company use sustainable fabrics? I've linked to this very photo before, but clothes with a lot of plastic in them do not decompose. But there are drawbacks to natural fibers, as well. Bamboo/viscose create acid waste and are energy intensive. Hemp and linen can be okay, but you need to know how they are dyed, how they are grown, and how they are processed to have a complete idea on the environmental impact. Cotton uses a lot of water. Wool needs a lot of land and there are concerns about the treatment of sheep, from the controversial mulesing to poor treatment during shearing.  But all fabrics containing plastics will eventually become microplastics. 

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  From Permacoach

  
  
• Does the company have transparent information about product durability, waste, water usage, and its overall carbon footprint?
• What does the company do with its excess stock? 

Consider my favorite punching bag, Boden. Boden makes adorable clothing! I have a Boden dress that I wear a lot and love. They make very big claims on their website.

Source.

Source.

This messaging is exactly why I bought from Boden. But then I started looking at sites that evaluate brands for sustainability and learned that Boden talks a big talk, but doesn't actually follow through. Boden's Good on You rating does not reflect any of their claims. 

Source. 

Here are some brands I own a fair amount of:

Mata Traders: I get a lot of dresses from this brand because their rating is pretty good, their prices are okay ($$ out of $$$$), they have a selection of dresses that use natural fabrics, and they have pockets in a lot of their dresses.

Source. 

Duluth Trading Company: I buy my leggings from Duluth because they are the only ones I can find that have pockets and are made of cotton with no additional man-made fabric. Does that justify me ignoring the rating that shows this is not a great company? 

Source.

There are places where I can not find a brand that meet even the most basic of ethical standards - think athletic shoes and sports bras - for those I have to just do my best. I usually decide humans > Mother Earth and look for things that were made in a NAFTA or European country. That's obviously not a 100% tried and true method of proving that things weren't made in sweatshop, but it's easier for me to feel good about something made in Italy than something made in India, China, or Bangladesh. (I mean, it's tough, right, because those people working in sweatshops in developing nations need jobs, too. There doesn't seem to be a good way to do this and hopefully you, dear reader, can read me gnashing my teeth at this.)

Second-hand shopping

So, why don't you just go to second-hand stores and thrift?  Good question. 

• Most of the stores in my immediate area are full of items from Walmart, Target, and Old Navy. I am unlikely to buy those items and, if I do, they're likely to fall apart after I wash them a handful of times. I could drive an hour or so in any direction and get to "better" thrift stores, but I'm not pumped about doing that during my limited time off (since it's not "fun" for me) and I'm not thrilled about using endless amounts of gasoline to do so.
• Second-hand shops are part of the problem, to be honest. (EVERYTHING IS.) The demand in second-hand goods is increasing and that's causing an increase in prices at thrift stores, which means the costs are out of the range of people who can afford them, namely low-income folks. The last time I was in my local Goodwill, there was a Target shirt with clearance tag marked under $7 and the Goodwill was charging more than that. For a shirt from Target! But, more importantly, much of the clothing that is donated goes straight to the landfill or is even burned (creating even more pollution!) or is sent overseas. 

The only real way to be an ethical consumer is to stop consuming. In the reuse, reduce, recycle phrase, there's nothing about re-buying.

But is that an option?  Can I keep wearing the same eight dresses for the rest of my life? Of course not. I live in these United States and have a professional job. I need to dress the part and cannot keep wearing the same old beat up clothing for decades and decades. 

Also, the thing is that the individual choices I make won't make an impact on the world. I am not a huge corporation. My decision to buy a dress or a new cell phone won't reverse global warming. But, in a familiar refrain you'll hear from me when I talk about things like watching the NFL, I think that while my individual buying patterns won't change anything, if most of us starting being more mindful of our buying practices, then those big companies would have to make changes. 

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Okay, bottom line. What do I do?

1) I try not to buy a lot. I'm purposeful about what I buy. I wear things for a long time.

2) If I do buy, I try to use something with a good rating from Good on You.

3) If I can't find something on Good on You (or I can't afford it), I dig into what makes the rating low on that site. If it's a negative on human labor, I will probably dip out. If it's a negative on Mother Earth, eh, I'll probably let it slide. Does it feel crappy to write that out? Yes, yes, it does.

4) If I can't find out anything, I'll look at where it was made. Canada or the UK? I'll probably give it a go. China or Vietnam? I'll probably try to find something else.

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It's not perfect, obviously. I still have some guilt about the sports bra I bought from Athleta. But unless I am able to grow and weave my own fibers, sew my own garments, and ensure a 100% sustainable process, this is where I am at.

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Do you agonize over every clothing purchase you make? Are you wearing anything right now that you've owned for more than five years?