What makes a product unethical?

It's there on the screen in front of you, a triumph of design and the latest cutting edge technology, fused together into the next must-have gadget, and for good measure, it has an eco-label. You click confidently through to the checkout, your conscience (and soon your bank balance) is clean.

But does that label tell you the whole story? What do you really know about this product? What do you know about the brand that makes it? What, if anything, do you know about the company behind the brand?

You see it’s not just the item itself that’s important when looking at what makes a product unethical or ethical. It’s about what’s happened to get that product in front of you and where your hard-earned cash goes once it leaves your account.

This article will discuss some of those issues and how Ethical Consumer can help you look behind the brand, with examples from the tech, fashion and online retail sectors.

Unethical technology products and brands

The 'black mirror' in front of you hides a collection of parts which come from all corners of the globe and are made of numerous precious metals, plastics, alloys and an array of other elements.

How these individual parts come to be in your device, is a large part of what makes a tech product ethical, or not.

For example, in the technology sector many of the metals needed to make the component parts come from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This country has been plagued by conflict for many years, a conflict funded in part by the profits from mining the metals that go into our electronic devices. Do you know if your device contains parts whose trade has funded a brutal civil war? How can you know if your device is ethical or not?

How about the manufacture of your device, the process whereby all the individual component parts are assembled to make the device you see in front of you. Was it manufactured in a factory that pays low wages, bans trade unions and makes workers toil over 60 hours a week?

You might also consider how much energy it uses, whether it's possible to fix the product if it breaks, how recyclable it is and how long its likely to last.

Responsible supply chains

The need to manage and take responsibility for supply chains extends to almost all products.

Most products now have very complex supply chains, with component parts or ingredients coming from all over the world.

Let's take a pair of jeans.

The cotton may come from Uzbekistan, the fabric may be woven and dyed in Bangladesh and the buttons manufactured in China. They might all be put together in a Turkish factory before they end up on the high street here in the UK.

All along this supply chain there is the potential for problems if companies don’t take responsibility for managing them in an ethical way. From forced labour and pesticide use in the cotton fields, to the use of child labour and toxic dyes in textile factories and then zero hours contracts and waste issues here in the UK.

At every step along the supply chain there is the potential for a product to become deeply unethical.

No positive product sustainability?

When we research our shopping guides we also look at a number of product specific questions depending on the sector we are researching.

These can include:

• Is it Fairtrade?

• Is it suitable for vegans?

• Is it organic?

If a product does not have any of these certified standards it is likely to be less ethical.

For example in our guide to chocolate, Plamil, which sits at the top of our rankings table, have positive marks for producing chocolate that is Fairtrade-certified and organic, plus all of the company's products were also approved by the Vegan Society.

At the bottom of the table are a number of Mondelez brands, such as Twirl and Milk Tray, whose products do not hold any of these independent ethical certifications.

Beyond the supply chain

But it doesn’t end with a company supply chain or product labels.

We also look at more general issues with the company. Are they lobbying governments against environmental protection? Are they financing right wing militias in poorer countries? Or are they avoiding paying their fair share of tax?

All these issues feed in to whether the final product in your shopping basket is ethical or not.

Follow the money

However it's not always clear cut.

Some brands may appear ethical but follow the money and you may find they are owned by a company that may have conflicting ethics.

Company ownership

The best example is the burgeoning market for vegan products.

Here we see a number of vegan products that are produced by companies that also sell meat and dairy products.

French multi-national Groupe Danone, a company with a 24.4% share in the global fresh dairy products also produce the popular non-dairy Alpro, Provamel and Soya Soleil brands.

Alpro, which is by far the UK's best known vegan brand, is now part of a brand roster that includes Activa yogurt, Cow & Gate baby milk and Actimel.

Danone are subject to multiple consumer boycotts over their aggressive marketing of baby milk formula.

Other examples include:

• Pure which is owned by the Kerry Group, whose other well-known brands include Richmond’s sausages, Wall’s Sausages, Dairygold and Cheesestrings.
• Linda McCartney, currently owned by Hain Celestial, a company who sells poultry products in the US, as well as owning Ella’s Kitchen baby food, much of which contains meat.

Ethical company take-overs

Another issue is take-overs. On occasion, ethical brands get taken over by unethical companies.

In December 2017, ethical brands Ecover and Method were taken over by multinational SC Johnson.

SC Johnson has links to animal testing and so in April 2018 campaign group Naturewatch launched a campaign asking supporters and the general public to contact Ecover and Method, expressing their disappointment at the takeover and pledging to boycott their products until SC Johnson is cruelty-free.

Ecover and Method are themselves cruelty-free and remain Leaping Bunny certified but are no longer endorsed by Naturewatch because of the parent company.

The takeover also led to Ecover and Method both losing marks in our ethical rankings.

• Ecover dropped from an Ethiscore of 11.5 points to 7.
• Method dropped from an Ethiscore of 12 points to 7.

SC Johnson (and therefore Method and Ecover) now lose marks for scoring a worst rating in many of the Ethical Consumer categories. This includes a worst rating for:

• animal testing

• environmental reporting

• likely use of tax avoidance strategies

• toxics.

Shining a light on unethical products, brands and companies….

As you can see from above, here at Ethical Consumer we shine a light on the important issues throughout a products supply chain (and beyond) so that you can tell if a product is unethical or not.

But it doesn’t end there.

We also follow the money so you can be sure that what you spend on a product doesn’t end up in the pocket of an overpaid fat cat executive, a lobbyist, a right-wing political party or a tax haven.

In all we have over 120 guides in 9 sectors all containing information on how unethical (or ethical) a product is based on company ownership (where the money goes) and the 230 categories that make up our unique ethical rating system.

In each guide we give companies an ethical score based on our extensive research. Each product is rated out of 20 but, as we explained above, this is about much more than just what’s in the product's box.

From bread to banks, we cover a range of products in our shopping guides to help revolutionise the way you shop, save and live.

We also have articles which look at specific industries, such as what makes banks unethical?