Educate. Connect. Inspire

Educate. Connect. Inspire
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Oct 17, 2011

Responsible Choices


by Livia Minca

We make choices every day. Now more than ever the choices we make are likely to have impacts beyond our limited scope. This is because living in a globalized world, that is more interconnected than ever, makes us all more vulnerable to other people's choices. For this reason, it is important to think about all the effects that our choices might imply and pick the most responsible alternative.

However, when we go shopping, for example, we often get carried away by special offers, quality and a good price, forgetting that our purchases have other added social or environmental considerations. What we need is to achieve a mindset that is constantly on the watch: is this product tied to a local economy? Is it locally produced? Is it packaged efficiently or is it recyclable?

Living sustainably is about living within the means of our natural systems (environment) and ensuring that our lifestyle doesn’t harm other people (society and culture). It’s really about thinking about where your food, clothes, energy and other products come from and deciding whether you should buy and consume these things. For example, you can buy timber imported from other countries to use in your home, but do you know enough about the rules in place in those countries to prevent animals from being harmed during the timber harvesting process, or if the local indigenous people support the harvesting, or how much they get paid?

At the other end, companies should also strive to comply with and promote environmental and social best practices. Recently more and more companies have included environmental performance and carbon emissions information, social welfare and charitable activities in their corporate responsibility policies and programmes. This is definitely a step forward and it means they have adapted to the requirements of their clients, who are more concerned with these issues. However, in many countries these considerations are still lacking. Every so often in the less developed countries the branches of multinational corporations have adopted the policies only on paper, while nothing is being actually implemented. People in these countries need a stronger voice to demand fair and environmentally sound practices.



The same applies for governmental and state institutions. People pay taxes, so they should expect that the service they pay for (clean air, safe water, clean city) is being delivered. Unfortunately, in many countries people do not react when the service is not delivered, for various reasons: they have more pressing needs that they have to think about, the lack of information, which leads to lack of interest and the fact that they are not used to question the authority of the state. Whatever the reason, the results is the same: things will not change.

Making good choices often involves looking at existing alternatives. Certified organic products, for example, were grown without the use of toxic pesticides, while products with the Fair Trade logo have come from producers that were paid a just wage for their work. In addition to fair trade and organic products, the two well-known classes of "responsible" products, there are also those that are produced by cooperatives, where workers share a greater amount of profits and responsibility, and local products, which require less transportation and, as a result, generate less climate-changing greenhouse gasses during shipping.

It is important to bring more often into attention the issue of choosing responsibly. Because the choices we make every day can improve not only our lives, but also the ones of other  people.

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