Question

Outline the key differences between being an ethical consumer or a consumer. Identify some reasons which might make it difficult to be a consistent ethical consumer.

Answer 1

The key differences being a ethical consumer is that they can take on a number of often subtle forms. Positive buying is favouring ethical products, be they fair trade, orgaic or cruelty free. Negative purchase means avoiding products you dispprove of such as battery eggs or polluting cars.

• In todays globalized economy, our choices about what to buy have far reaching consequences around the world.
• While we don't typically stop to think about our everyday purchases, doing so can allow more ethical product choises.
• In response to concerns about the ethical impacts of global capitalism, initiatives have been developed to create fair trade and sustainable products.

Difficulties for ethical consumer:

​​​​​​​It's not easy being an ethical consumers, there days especially if you're hoping to buy products that embody all or most of the ethical values you care about.

Here's an example: If you like salmon, and you're the sort of consumer who wants to eat ethically, should you buy organic or wild salmon? After all, there's a huge effort these days to promote organic foods as ethical-gentler on the earth, and so on. Of course, others are't so sure that there's much benefit to organic foods, and some even argue that the organic label is more a status symbol than anything else.

Now what about Wild vs farmed? Some people think farmed salmon is always bad. Others, like food-policy expert James McWilliams , argue that whatever its current flaws, farmed fish provides our best hope for a future that includes significant amount of protien at acceptable environment cost. Eating wild fish, on the other hand, puts pressure on fragile wild populations.