The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping
We, in Britain, don't consider ourselves to be 'consumers' - according to research conducted by the Henley Centre (a strategic marketing consultancy) a few years ago.
When asked to describe how they saw themselves and how they thought others saw them, people used words that were familial (wife, father, &c), social (friend, companion, &c) or occupational (colleague, boss, &c). Fewer than five per cent claimed to be or to be seen as 'consumers' or 'shoppers'.
This is worrying. Given that UK household expenditure is currently around £700 billion per year, you could argue that we are consumers over and above anything else. If anyone drove 50,000 miles a year and didn't consider themselves a motorist, they would be a dangerous road user.
We should, therefore, welcome the growth of ethical consumerism - with its insistence that shopping is a real, moral area of our lives - and, in particular, one of its recent additions, the Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping.
The near-ubiquitous Rough Guides vary in quality, but this one hits the mark with admirable precision. A well-balanced 100-page introduction to the issues, which manages to eschew polemic and cheap point-scoring, is followed by 250 pages of well-researched and - crucially - practical information. It examines food, drink, clothes, cosmetics, jewellery, finance, travel, transport and household goods, explaining trends, scrutinising companies, evaluating brands, suggesting alternatives, listing websites and offering advice.
There is little specifically Christian content in the book and, of course, no theology. This might make the average Christian slightly nervous but, in reality, every reader would do well to maintain a sceptical approach. The book never tries to bully you, but in discussing the enormously complex web of relationships that underlies the purchases we make, it hints at the ethical presuppositions that underpin its own judgments, some of which the reader might not agree with. Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware - applies whether she is 'ethical' or not.
Yet, in the absence of any distinctly Christian equivalent (at least to this consumer's knowledge - let us know at www.licc.org.uk/culture if there is one!), this guide is a useful volume to have around, and one that should remind us that, in the words of Abraham Kuyper, pastor, theologian and once prime minister of the Netherlands, 'There is no square inch of creation over which Jesus Christ does not shout, "This is mine!"'
Nick Spencer
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