frogblog

So here we are on Buy Nothing Day, but you’re finding the consumption urge is just too much to resist.

If you really need to scratch that itch today, remember that, as Rod reminded us all a week or so before he died, shopping is a political act.

So a good place to start is hippyshopper.com, a blog serving as an ethical consumers’ guide.

The fav of the reader who pointed me to the site is the Asus U5, ‘the first eco-warrior laptop’:

Meet the perfect machine for ethically-minded bloggers, eco warriors and green citizens: Asus’ lead and halogen-free U5. It’s the first laptop free of the ropey chemicals and it also happens to be one of the most handsome. The spec’s respectable, too, with the fastest Pentium M processor on the market, stacks of connectivity and ultra light dimensions (it only weighs 1.4kg and the screen’s a 12.1 inch widescreen job). Of course, any laptop uses a lot of resources to make and the best thing you can do - for your wallet and the environment - is buy second-hand from eBay. If you must have a brand new ultraportable, though, this is a good bet, and it’s available later this month for a price that’s TBA

Another good online resource for political shopping is the Co-op America. Its four goals are listed as:

Empowering individuals to make purchasing and investing choices that promote social justice and environmental sustainability;

Demanding an end to corporate irresponsibility through collective economic action

Promoting green and fair trade business principles while building the market for businesses adhering to these principles;

Building sustainable communities in the US and abroad.

If you want to do some local ethical shopping, Trade Aid’s site, which isn’t an online store, provides a guide to where you can buy fairly traded products in NZ. Interesting that a company is willing to point you to outlets other than its own.

If you do want to shop ethically online, check out The NZ Nature Company for a bunch of ecological sound products. Or if you want your politics be overt in your gift giving this Xmas, just go the New Internationalist’s NZ online store.

For a whole lot of info on how to apply your politics when you shop, check out The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping, which NZ site Organics Pathways has reviewed.

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