Ethics vs Price
January 18th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Once again I am struck by the eternal problem of price vs ethics. Only those who are very affluent can afford to make only ethical decisions. My partner and I are not particularly well off, one student and one casually employed technician, both working for a charity. We are both passionately driven conservationists. We can’t afford to only buy ethical things.
Wherever possible we buy local, ethical and particularly environmentally sound. This can add as much as a third onto our weekly shop. So what do you do?
Can you cut out things that are fairtrade and focus on organic? Should you focus on buying local food from Farmer’s markets or organic from a consumer giant like Tesco? Is it better to focus on ethical food and forget toiletries and clothing? Should you go and get things from the green grocer, butcher, baker etc separately or only drive to one place and get everything there?
Each person has to pick which things are truly important to them and allow themselves to have a treat from time to time. None of us can survive without filling the tank of happiness!
So the moral is, make ethical choices where you feel you can and let yourself off where you can’t
Monkey hugs
