Top 5 ethical companies by sector

Image: Fairtrade Know the Origin — Know the Origin

Tim Hunt

Thursday 25th of August 2022

We list the highest scoring ethical company in each of five different sectors: fashion, health and beauty, food and drink, money, and technology.

The companies are:

MUD
Odylique
Plamil
Fairphone
Triodos

Fashion

MUD

Ethical product rating: 15

Why buy from MUD:

Independent brand based in the Netherlands, MUD sit at the top of our ratings in our guide to ethical fashion brands.

MUD emphasises the circular economy and focuses on jeans, partly as they are one of the most polluting fashion items, given the resources needed and size of the market. They created a ‘lease’ model, where you can hire jeans for a monthly fee, then return them to MUD to be recycled. They use certified organic cotton and currently their jeans contain 40% post-consumer recycled cotton. They are also a registered B-corporation.

Health and Beauty

Odylique

Ethical product rating: 17.5 (lipstick)

Why buy Odylique:

Odylique are a vegetarian friendly cosmetics company based in the UK. They sit top of our make up rankings table scoring with some of the highest possible ethical standards. For example their lipstick is both organic and fairtrade certified.

The company also has a positive animal testing policy. They never use ingredients tested on animals and have a fixed cut off date for ingredients that may have been tested on animals in the past. The brand is owned by Essential Care Organics.

Food and Drink

Plamil

Ethical Product rating: 18/20 (vegan chocolate)

Why buy from Plamil?

Plamil is a vegan company with a long history of producing sustainable foods.

For example its palm oil is sourced from organic sources, the company only uses renewable energy and much of its chocolate is both Fairtrade and organic as well as suitable for vegans.

Money

Triodos

Ethical rating: 15.5 (current accounts)

Why buy from Triodos?

Triodos sits at the top or near the top of a number of our product guide tables, including current accounts, saving accounts and cash ISAs. Triodos Bank only lends to organisations which create real social, environmental and cultural value such charities, social businesses, community projects and environmental initiatives.

The bank is also fully transparent about who it lends to, this is very rare in a sector where ethical standards tend to be very low.

Technology

Fairphone

Ethical rating: 15 (smart phones)

Why buy a Fairphone?

Fairphone was started as a campaigning organisation working to stop abuses in the conflict mineral supply chain. It later became a company and started to sell mobile phones that are made to much higher ethical standards than those sold by mainstream brands. For example their phones use conflict free components and some fairtrade gold.

They also use manufacturing facilities in China where working conditions are much higher.

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