Ethical shopping

Apparently it’s easy to fall into a vicious cycle when it comes to buying ethically.

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Ethical shopping

In general, explains a 2015 study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, we don’t like to try too hard when it comes to finding out how ethical a product is, and we tend to view people who do make the effort as boring and unfashionable and we may even be inclined to ridicule them – which leads us to undermine our values and be less ethical in the future.

But despite this kind of wilful ignorance, the researchers say that at heart we do want to be ethical; all it takes is for companies to make clear on the packaging that we are buying ethically.

And who says ethical shopping is unfashionable, when we can drape ourselves in fairtrade People Tree dresses?

Photograph: iStock