Ethical Spending
Anybody who has so much as browsed the supermarket shelves with half an eye on taking part in Veganuary will tell you that the cost of some vegan food is, well, somewhat considerable in comparison to non-vegan alternatives. Likewise, woke culture regarding fashion or travel (to name but two examples) can seem like a steep price to pay for a good deed.
Ethical Spending (the woke & broke debate)
Let’s look at some ways to muster your spending power to do your part in nudging the markets towards a more sustainable future without leaving yourself with a string of zeros on the ATM screen.
Reduce single-use plastics
After consulting as many ethical consumer guides as you wish (see this research, for example), the time will inevitably come to make your own decisions about how your contribution to the economy could be doing more for yourself, the environment, and society. It’s a tall order to take on board when all you want to do is purchase some new socks. But it’s worth educating yourself now to stay ahead of the unrelenting ethical surge heading our way.
One of the fastest ways to remain financially viable throughout the year while supporting positive change is to reduce how much single-use plastic you buy. Single-use plastics are made out of non-renewable fossil fuels. Purchasing them supports the use of unrenewable energies. It creates a landfill problem – the average amount of time needed for single-use plastics to decompose is around 1000 years (that’s one thousand years of unrecyclable pollution your family’s future generations won’t thank you for).
Start by not purchasing plastic water bottles, coffee cups, and plastic tubs from the takeaway. You’ll notice the savings, too.
Choose second-hand clothing & technology.
Spending your cash on the high street is valuable to the economy. But supporting the biggest brands is not always the most ethical way to support the planet’s future (it’ll cost you dearly in the pocket, too).
Instead, where you absolutely can’t get away from the fact that you need quick options to modern problems like fashion and technology, choose second-hand solutions. This means that money will still be changing hands, keeping society at large ticking over in terms of jobs and commerce, but the big brands producing the expensive clothing and technology won’t see a penny of it. Where their products are circulating without them getting rich, they will make less.
The laws of supply and demand are tried and tested. It works. Demand less, and less will be produced. It is that simple.
Offset your carbon footprint
A jet airliner may release as much as 100 kilos of carbon into the atmosphere per hour. Carbon is the most social atom, meaning it binds with other atoms more freely than any other substance we know of. The result? Lots and lots of hard to un-do molecules clogging up our air (and also causing unnatural shifts in ecosystems).
If you have to fly to keep the cost of travel down, invest in a carbon footprint scheme.
Ethical Spending
With these small changes towards ethical spending, you can do your part and use your purchasing power to help the markets move toward a more prosperous future without ending up with a series of zeros on your ATM computer!