Our culture has made it normal to go to store after store and just buy whatever is cute or fills our desires. Impulse buying becomes a way of life that we gladly accept. We build up countless items that eventually find homes in storage somewhere or even in a landfill.
What is important to remember when you go shopping is that there is a journey that the item you are buying went on. It may have started on a farm somewhere. It may have had toxic chemicals handled by someone. It may have been in a supply chain filled with mistreatment and unsafe working conditions. When you think about the journey, it can help you have a thoughtful reaction to guide if you will buy that item, use that item, or really even need that item. When you buy it, you are either supporting the company that allowed the journey to be ethical or allowed it to be bound with a chain of links alerting you that you just supported slave labor with your dollar just to fill your home with your cute item and impulse buy.
How can your old mindset change when you go shopping?
Before you even go shopping, we urge you to research companies. We at Justice Network have done a lot of the work for you with our resources list.
If you don’t see the company you love listed on our site, seek out their website on your own. Places where you may find information could be on their “About” page. Sometimes they explain things that lead to examples where they talk about their factories and what their process is. Maybe it is in their legal lingo on their site or in a FAQ section. Maybe it is on the bottom of their page on a link that says, “Social Impact & Responsibility” (with a page completely devoted to explaining their process). Maybe they have things plastered all over their website with information about what they do to help change the way people are treated along the supply chain. If you have to dig really hard and come up empty, chances are, the company has no idea about the journey of their items. There is most likely slavery involved in the creation of their products.
When you go shopping, you can look for labels about a company’s ethics. Some labels may say it is a B-Corp or is Fair-Trade. Maybe it says it is “direct trade.” Maybe you have to actually go up to a worker and ask if they know any information about the company’s supply chain. If they don’t have an answer, there is no need to stick around. If they can give you exact information, you will truly feel you can trust them better when shopping.
It is time to take a step back to question if you really need to support companies you have always loved that may be supporting labor trafficking. Maybe they aren’t the best place to go to in the long run. If you love the company dearly and wish they had more information or took steps to change, contact them. As a consumer, your opinion does matter and can truly make a difference.
Take the time to really think through what you need, find a company that you can trust that might have that item, and then make your purchase. Be mindful about where you go shopping and where you put your dollar. When you evaluate what you are spending your money on, it will help you be less impulsive and more deliberate. Shop with a clear conscience and with a breath of fresh air.