Ethical Online Shopping

Ethical online shopping in the UK 

When this guide was first produced in 2014, it was based on feedback from readers about which ethical online shops they used most. Sadly, many from that list are no longer trading, including the popular and high-scoring Global Seesaw and Nigel’s Eco Store.

This gives an indication of what a difficult market online retail is, particularly for small companies. The internet is a big place and Amazon dominates every Google product search. Larger retailers have other advantages too, such as being able to offer discounts that undercut competitors and having multiple warehouses around the country which makes delivery cheaper.

Ethical online retailers also have a limited range of products to sell, precisely because they’re ethical. And the products they do sell often crop up on the sites of several ethical retailers and on Amazon and eBay as well. It’s worth bearing these difficulties in mind when looking at the score table.

Ethical shopping in 2021

Our Ethical Consumer Market Report, which tracks the sales of ethical goods and services, shows that the market for ethical goods is still growing.

The 2019 report valued the ethical market in the UK at £41.1 billion, an almost 400% increase over 40 years.

The 2020 report focused on the impact of the pandemic on people’s predisposition to shop ethically. The image below shows pre-lockdown vs. post-lockdown behaviour change.

The big winners appeared to be shopping locally, reducing energy consumption and cycling more, with public transport set to be the big loser, at least in the short term. In terms of food shopping, buying fair trade and organic increased following lockdown.

The ethical online shops in this guide

Because Amazon sells everything (Nicolas Cage pillowcase anyone?), providing ethical alternatives to cover it all is difficult. That’s why we’ve included John Lewis and – maybe controversially – eBay. None of the small retailers sell electrical items so we’ve introduced Electrofarm, a specialist in second hand and refurbished electricals.

This guide also includes retailers with a range of ethical credentials.

The Amnesty Shop, Viva! and Oxfam are charities which use retail to raise funds and advertise their causes with related merchandise.

Four of the retailers are 100% vegan: Veo; Wearth; the vegan campaigning charity Viva!; and Ethical Wares, the vegan shoe seller that started trading over 25 years ago, long before veganism was mainstream.

Another veteran ethical retailer included in the guide is Ethical Shop, owned by the not-for-profit co-operative publisher, New Internationalist.

A previous Best Buy in this guide, Amberoot, wasn't included because we left out those which only sell clothing, and then in 2022 they sadly folded.

What do retailers mean by ethical?

All of the brands in this guide (other than eBay) refer on their websites to their ethics, values or purpose. Many label their products with ethical criteria and allow shoppers to use these criteria as a filter. Some of the criteria have clear definitions and external verification, such as organic or fairtrade, while others are less clear, for example “eco-conscious” or “economic empowerment”.

Most of the retailers do explain what their categories mean, and we understand that what’s ethical is partly subjective. Having said that, many of the retailers require their products to comply with only one criterion.

Some make the point that they do this because their customers have different values, and they want to give them choice. But we’re not sure this is good enough and would prefer to see a baseline standard for all products that covers a range of environmental issues as well as workers’ rights. If you agree, select products that meet all these standards and let your favourite retailers know why you’re doing this.

Planet Organic - What's in a name?

In the past, we’ve recommended Planet Organic, but we’re not sure how accurate the company name is any more. Previously the whole company was certified by the Soil Association but now only the kitchens are.

We also noticed this statement on the website: “Over the years, we’ve incorporated non-organic products
into our range to keep up with demand from our customers”.

The company’s GMO policy also seems to have become more equivocal, from “We also never have, and never will, sell GMO foods, or sell meat from animals fed GMO food” to the website now saying: “We believe that natural is better for us and for the environment, so we have never sold food which contains artificial sweeteners, flavours, colours, preservatives, or any genetically modified food and products” with no mention of animal feed.

Finding alternatives to Amazon

This guide is part of our ‘alternatives to Amazon’ series, to help you find more ethical online retailers than Amazon. With the popularity of online shopping remaining high post-lockdown, it’s more important than ever that we resist the temptations of Amazon.

For almost a decade Ethical Consumer has being calling for a boycott of the company over its tax avoidance which costs the UK millions in public funds every year, but it is also widely criticised for workers’ rights issues and its monopoly over many markets.

We have seen resistance to Amazon grow over time. Not only have we been joined by Fair Tax Mark, Tax Justice Network and others in condemning the company’s tax record; we’ve seen workers, unions, anti-racism organisations, anti-gentrification movements and others raise voices against Amazon globally.

By boycotting the company, we are taking part in this global movement and building the pressure for Amazon – or the legislation that allows its abuses – to change.

As this guide shows, there are alternatives out there, which, as well as simply not being Amazon, also deliberately offer a more ethical selection of products, or even fund campaigning through their sales.

We’ve tried to make sure that the ethical retailers included in this guide cover most of what you might use Amazon for, so you have options for where to spend your money.

Ethical issues highlighted in the score table

Environmental reporting

We tweaked our environmental reporting criteria for this guide and as a result some companies have lost marks when previously they did well, for example Social Supermarket and Big Green Smile.

Small companies can generally get a best rating if they specialise in products which are of environmental benefit. But here we also demanded that they place requirements on their suppliers to reduce their own environmental impacts. We thought this was justified because most of the retailers in this guide market themselves as ethical – three of them have ‘green’ in their names – and supply chains are where the vast majority of environmental impacts take place for consumer companies, typically 90%.

Using the new criteria, five of the small retailers received a best rating for environmental reporting: Veo, Wearth, Green Stationery, Shared Earth and Ethical Shop.

Many of those who received a worst rating were also taking actions to reduce their environmental impacts by cutting packaging or stocking plastic-free and vegan products. Big Green Smile moved its warehouse to reduce its mileage and Green Tulip has stopped sending out paperwork in its orders. These are positive steps, but as they are taking place in the companies’ own operations rather than in their supply chains they are relatively less effective.

Carbon management and reporting

There are seven large companies in this guide and none of them achieved a best rating for carbon management as they didn’t sufficiently show that they were taking meaningful steps to cut their climate emissions; they didn't report on their emissions including in their supply chains or have a decent reduction target.

Five of them: John Lewis, eBay, Amnesty Shop, Oxfam and Electrofarm, received a middle rating as they were taking some steps. Spark Etail and Planet Organic received a worst rating.

We put lower requirements on small companies – they just have to be taking some meaningful actions. Shared Earth, Green Stationery, and Big Green Smile all were.

Several of the other small companies discussed measures they took to offset their carbon emissions, for example, one of our best buys, Wearth offset the emissions of its deliveries through support for forestry projects in Brazil and the UK. Whilst this is better than doing nothing, best practice is to avoid emissions in the first place.

Most of the small companies did achieve a middle rating, however, as they were providing a lower carbon alternative. This applied to the four companies that were 100% vegan and to Ethical Shop and Green Tulip, who stocked a large range of products that were recycled, made in the UK, and vegan.

Supply chain management

Of the large companies, only John Lewis and Oxfam achieved a best rating for Supply Chain Management, showing that they were taking steps to ensure workers’ rights in their supply chain.

Of the small retailers, Shared Earth, Ethical Shop and Veo met the threshold: Shared Earth  because they are fair trade retailers with long-term relationships with suppliers; Ethical Shop because it required suppliers to commit to freedom of association and living wages and published its list of suppliers; and Veo because it required standards to be met throughout its supply chains, not just by its immediate suppliers.