Shopping for good karma

August 26, 2007 7:09 AM

Can anyone suggest websites/producers/organizations that will allow me to make buy things (food, gift, etc) in an ethical way?

I know about fair trade, but it's not always specific enough...and it's 90% coffee. For example, I don't think it's right to boycott all Israeli products because of my disagreement with what's going on in the Territories, but I'd like to restrict any future buying to producers who aren't contributing to the conflict, and would love to support any organizations or producers working for peace or cooperation, if any such exist.

Israel's just an example, though, so suggestions for ethical shopping in general are appreciated.

posted by sarahkeebs to shopping (3 comments total)

A book I found useful was The Rough Guide To Shopping With A Conscience. It covers the ethical considerations for many areas of shopping (buying local? buying organic? investing?) quite comphensively with a lot of followup provided for your own research (websites to look up) and for what it covers it gives you the pros/cons of the arguments to help you make your own decisions, which I liked.
posted by Melinika at 8:53 AM on August 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Organic Bouquet is a good one. They address the unsustainable aspect of the billion dollar commercial flower industry by eliminating pesticides and using other green methods. A caveat it seems to me, however, is that it's unclear whether their producers/suppliers use fair labor practices as well. anyway, worth a look.
posted by jk252b at 4:49 PM on August 26, 2007

There's one in the UK - http://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/

No idea about Canadian ones, though :(
posted by Andorinha at 4:46 AM on August 27, 2007