Chocolate plays a significant role in deforestation, particularly in West Africa. Avoid mainstream chocolate brands and seek out chocolate made from shade-grown cacao.
Chocolate and deforestation
Category: Ethical shopping guide
These posts take examples of everyday items and examine social and environmental factors to consider in each case. The goal is not for this site to become the authoritative ethical shopping guide. That’s too much responsibility for one person or organization. The goal is for us to collectively decide on the most ethical choices, as consumers.
We increasingly rely on user-generated content, whether looking up reviews of a restaurant or trying to purchase a new laptop. User-generated content can make use of our various perspectives and backgrounds to come to a consensus on ethics – see this post for more on the topic of why we need user-generated ethical ratings.
So, the Green Stars Project is all about applying user-generated content to integrate an ethical shopping guide into our daily lives. The vision is that Green Stars reviews will soon be visible on the sites we use (Yelp, Amazon, etc.) so that they are visible to everyone. Many don’t have the time or energy to consult dedicated ethical shopping guides so the goal is to bring ethical consumerism to a wider audience and also to make it a democratic process.
The posts in this category aim to provide guidance that will help you to make your own ethical decisions, wherever you live. Importantly, please consider incorporating a Green Stars rating next time you review something! Contact me if you do, as there’s a recurring competition to encourage readers to write ethical reviews – you can win an ethical prize and be featured on this site!
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Adding Beyond Good to the list
I just finished researching a chocolate brand that was new to me – Beyond Good. I’m adding it to the top 10 list of ethical chocolate brands. Don’t forget to vote on the brands!
Top 10 Ethical Chocolate Brands
Here’s a guide to the top 10 ethical chocolate brands. It’s different to other guides in that it will change with your input – vote now! This is an exercise in user-generated ratings for ethical consumerism.
User-generated ratings for ethical consumerism
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!
Too Good To Go – an app to reduce food waste
Too Good To Go is an app that allows you to buy heavily-discounted mystery bags of food that would have otherwise been wasted. Here’s more about Too Good To Go, a certified B-Corporation, and food waste in general.
Re-Up Refill Shop in Oakland
The Re-Up Refill Shop, based in Oakland, California, offers zero-waste solutions for most of the stuff that you need for your home. US residents dump more than their own body weight in plastic every year. Half of it is packaging.
Dairy vs vegan butters in Europe
Supermarket shelves are dominated by two kinds of butter: conventional dairy-based butter or plant-based vegan butter made from palm oil. Vegan butters are more sustainable than dairy butter, but ideally should be palm-oil free. I found two that I like.
The ethical issues with dairy farming
Still undecided whether to choose dairy or vegan butter? Using cow’s milk as an example, here’s a list of the three most basic ethical issues with dairy farming. Solutions are also explored.
Butter and vegan alternatives in Ireland
Whenever I come home to Ireland I have the dilemma of which kind of butter to buy: conventional dairy-based butter or plant-based vegan butter. In California, the choice is pretty straightforward – it’s now fairly easy to find good-quality, ethical and affordable vegan butters. In Ireland, however, the choice is not so clear, as I’ll explain over the next couple of posts. Or at least it wasn’t a clear choice at first…
Blackstone’s investment in Oatly
Blackstone Group bought a 10% stake in Oatly, back in 2020, and this incited a lot of talk of boycotting @Oatly products. Should we not be supportive that @Blackstone took steps in the right direction? Or do we want them to be “bad” forever?