Less cash more green but more cash more ethical.

[Andy Hamilton]

I have noticed in the last few years that the poorer people are the greener they tend to be. Obviously taking less flights, perhaps not owning a car and if they do only using it for essential journeys. Buying less new electrical items, in fact buying less new things.

Saying that, you do have to have a bit of extra cash to have an ethical shopping basket. Try buying nothing but ethical products for example organic cotton bed sheet can cost 10 times the amount that you would pay in Asda for bog standard sheets. With the most ethical; organic local hemp sheets costing the price of a bed (from Ikea) !!

So are the organic fairtrade folk all middle class but the greenest folk (with the smallest carbon footprint) mostly working class?? One perhaps being a trend, whilst the other having little choice.

Or am I getting it all wrong does it have nothing to do with cash and everything to do with making a conscious choice?

[the.fee.fairy]

OOh...that goes a bit deep!

Maybe divorce the ideas of green and ethical sitting together.

To be green, you can earn any amount (or not as the case may be).
To be ethical, there is a premium price.

However...if you make do and mend out of necessity, are you being more ethical? yes. Are you being more green? Yes.

Hmm

The thing is, i'm not so convinved that green and ethical go together as a perfect partnership. For example:

Fair trade clothing/toys: They get here from somewhere else on the globe. But, they are the 'Ethical' choice. Fair trade buyers tend to buy small amounts of stock to sell at a premium price - are we really sure that the price hike for an 'ethical' teeshirt is really worth it - is the maker really paid that much more?

However...somewhere like Primark, even though they use dubious making practices will buy in massive bulk from China, or India, or wherever their factories are these days. Therefore, they are shipping a MASSIVE number of teeshirt, as opposed to the fair trade large number.

This makes Primark more green, does it not?

So, do i pay the premium for the fair trade because its Ethically sound, or do i get the cheap stuff because its greener?

[circlecross]

we have been having an angsty time about the cost of "ethical/green" living. dh put kwink on our fridge with t he fridge magnets (prob made in China by children, before we knew any better etc...) which stands for "knowing what I now know". However, he was tempted to add kwine (knowing what I now earn) as a balance.

I have not bought clothes from the high street from a long time, the exception being something fairtrade for the dh for xmas. I will now buy second hand, or if I need a top, marks and even (shudder) T***o have strted stocking fair trade cotton items (don't know if they are still run up in sweat shops however). The point being I have stacks of clothes, and I don't need any more, so I wait for xmas and birthdays when inevitably someone will buy me something, and I point them in the direction of our world shop which is a small local business, stocking only fairtrade items.

Shoes I buy new, but I, and the kids wear them until they fall apart, (in my case all at once at the mo) or until their feet grow.

I went shopping the other night, and had to go to one of our fave supermarkets (long story only time available was 10pm), and I was sick of myself by the time I had packed up. Organic yogurt, pref the British company with easy to recycle pots, british organic meat, pulses, cheese from Freedom food, breakfast cereal with a conscience, organic snacks for the kids, wholemeal pasta (organic) etc etc.

I didn't have veg in the trolley as I had walked to our grocer to get it, and not MUCH meat as I had visited our local butcher to get it. Our nappies are cloth, our wipes are either cloth, or biodegradeable from the local co-op, my sani protection was a)cloth or b) bought in bulk (natracare), and toilet rolls, washing liquids and cleaning cloths are bought in bulk (recycled or eco-friendly,) or washable ones.

I was feeling nauseated by the green glow emanating from my trolley, and heartily sick of my right-on-ness, when I looked at the trolley behind me. Value frozen processed crap, dispicable nappies bulk packs with accompanying wipes, any old sh*t food, and lots of plastic bottles of pop and crisps.

my trolley probably held less, but cost more, and although I felt totally middle class and ok-yah, I couldn't have done it differently, KWINK. KWINE does come into it, as I will forgo treats and unecesseries, which makes for a fun-less shop at times, but it is a way to make kwink and kwine meet up. Ish.

(I am not preaching and not ranting, I just tend to go on when I am typing! Sorry!)

[Hawthorn]

Um, dumb moment here......KWINK and KWINE?

[circlecross]

sorry said it in post but not in caps
KWINK= knowing what i now know
KWINE= knowing what I now earn!!!

[Wombat]

Ummm, I'd like to flip something else into the mix about living simply, which sort of fits in here, and that is choice.

Eg two people ride a bike to work, the more materialist person who hates it and will buy a car at the first opportunity, and the other person who has made a positive choice to live simply or more greener etc and feels fulfilled by riding the bike and will keep it up regardless of a change in circumstances.

Nev

[snapdragon]

I can only be as ethical as my bank balance will allow, and as green as my conscience makes me

colleagues on lower payrates than me say I'm wasting money on meat from the local butcher and plastic-less shopping (amongst other things)
- but although they're frugal, no car, no flights, there's the flip side-- cheap shop at te$€0, annual bonus spent on gi-huge flat screen television, so are they green?

[ina]

Strangely enough, I have often found that folk on low incomes are nowhere as green as you'd expect them to be... Quite often I don't understand how they finance their cars etc, either.

When I worked in an office for very little more than minimum wages, everybody there had a car, except me. (OK, they didn't pay their own rent - or not all of it: they lived with their parents, or had a partner who earned more.) Almost all of them spent lots of money of fags and drink. None of them would ever have thought of not having all electronic equipment on for the entire time that they were in their house or flat... Of course they all had TV, video, mobile phones etc.

So - what I'm trying to say (I think ) is that it's not just income that determines how you behave. Andy suggests that it might be middle class who are organic fair trade - but then, how do you define class? From my income, I'm definitely not middle class (I belong to those on an income low enough to be paying more income tax after this budget ); but from my education I probably am. I think it's more awareness that drives your behaviour - and that does not depend entirely on education, but at least partly...

[QuakerBear]

Boring, time consuming and effort intensive as it may be I think it's best for each of us to examine all of our purchases and lifestyle options and balance things up.

I don't find generalisations on the scale of a county very accurate, informative or helpful.

Sorry.

[Russian Doll]

i cant afford to be ethical all the time but if fairtrade is on special then i will buy it

as for being green then yes i do find it easier as i dont buy much new at all..my whole house got furnished by freecycle