These posts take a look at the content and structure of “Green Stars” reviews. You can post an ethical consumerism review on any site using this format. But feel free to use whatever format makes sense to you, as long as you award a Green Stars rating and explain your reasoning a little bit.
What’s the most ethical protein, brah? Last week I published a graphic showing different kinds of butter, dairy and non-dairy, ranked from 0 to 5 Green Stars. Following up on that, here’s a graphic showing ethical scores for various sources of protein in our diets. Continue reading Sustainable Food: Ethical ratings for different protein sources
I’m sharing a post from Ethical Bargains that evaluated Ivy’s Reserve carbon-neutral butter. UK-based Wyke Farms launched this butter in 2023, a year after releasing “the world’s first carbon neutral cheddar.” In the end, I scored Ivy’s Reserve butter 2/5 Green Stars for social and environmental impact and at the same time realized that this is close to the maximum score that I’d give a dairy-based butter product. Is this fair? Continue reading Butter: I can’t believe it’s not ethical!
How should we think about ethical products when they are owned by multinational corporations with poor ethical track records? There are a few different ways of looking at this. I’ll share my thoughts and ask for yours in a survey on the topic. Continue reading Ethical brands owned by mediocre multinationals
I’m reluctant to create an ethical consumerism guide based only on my own opinion – it would be incomplete. We need a good, reliable guide that relies on user-generated content. The experiment starts next week! Continue reading User-generated ratings for ethical consumerism
Welcome to another Green Stars Project friendly contest! The challenge: write a review of any product, company, or local business and include a Green Stars rating for social and environmental impact. The prize: a subscription to Ethical Consumer, the UK nonprofit that’s one of the best resources on ethical consumption. Continue reading Green Stars / Ethical Consumer competition
Peet’s coffee was founded in Berkeley, California, by Dutch immigrant, Alfred Peet, all the way back in 1966. Peet’s changed the landscape of coffee in America, taking things up a few notches in terms of quality and experience. You can imagine what Berkeley culture was like in 1966, when Peet’s arrived on the scene, fueling conversations on free speech, civil rights, and the Vietnam war. … Continue reading Peet’s Coffee – sustainability and social responsibility
A common issue that people raise is that they are not sure where to start when it comes to writing an ethical review. Perhaps you would like to join in, but the process of deciding on an ethical rating seems overwhelming? Well, look no further, because informing this process is one of the main priorities of the Green Stars Project! When I’m trying to decide … Continue reading How to decide on an ethical rating: Cafés
Greetings! In the next post, I’ll run another competition to encourage you, dear readers, to write a Green Stars review, so please stay tuned for that. In the meantime, I want to take another look at the ethical consumerism criteria that can go into a Green Stars rating. Evaluating the ethics of a product or business is sometimes daunting, but it becomes more manageable when … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 10 – Green Stars rating criteria
I think it’s worth writing a post to explain why I took the direction of user-generated ratings with the Green Stars Project. There’s a pretty good chance that you take advantage of user-generated content on a regular basis. Perhaps you were just looking up the difference between herons and cranes on Wikipedia, and then went for a random encyclopedic walk so long that you forgot … Continue reading Ethical Consumerism, Part 5: Why we need User-Generated Ratings.
Earlier in the year, I wrote a post about cell phones that covered a few social and environmental issues, from repairability and longevity to sourcing of (conflict) minerals. I said I would post an update once I chose a new phone and wrote a Green Stars review, and so, here I am! Based on the research that I did for that post, I had come … Continue reading Ethical Cell Phone Update: LG Review
The Green Stars Project 