ethical brands bandwagon article

World risk: Reputation - The new self-satisfaction
March 7th 2006


COUNTRY BRIEFING

FROM FINANCIAL TIMES

By Richard Tomkins

Published: March 6 2006 18:35 | Last updated: March 6 2006 18:35

Tucked away at the top end of Monmouth Street in London’s Covent Garden, just opposite Bang & Olufsen, is an erotic emporium called Coco de Mer. Of course, I have never been there myself. But I have this friend – well, more of an acquaintance, really – who tells me the shop makes a particular point of selling so-called ethical products: you know, spanking paddles made from naturally-felled wood, non-toxic sex toys endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund, Fairtrade leather bondage gear and so on.

We should not be surprised. After all, Coco de Mer’s founder, Sam Roddick, is the daughter of Anita Roddick, who pioneered modern-day ethical retailing by founding The Body Shop 30 years ago.

Yet it is not just sex that is getting sustainable. These days, all kinds of businesses are jumping aboard the ethical trading bandwagon. Last week, Topshop, a trendy British clothing retailer, said it was introducing three ethical clothing concessions – People Tree, Hug and Gossypium – to its flagship London store. A few days earlier I was reading about Ethos Water, now owned by Starbucks, which promises to donate 5 cents towards water projects in underdeveloped countries for every bottle sold. A few weeks before that, American Express said it was joining with Bono, the rock star, to market the American Express Red card (initially in the UK), which will dedicate some of its revenues to fighting HIV/Aids in Africa.

What are ethical products? Well, to give you an idea, the official Fairtrade logo on a product denotes that the developing country growers who supply it are being guaranteed a good price, while a seal of approval from the Rainforest Alliance indicates that a product has been grown or made sustainably.

Marvellous. But where does that leave all the other products of the world? Must we assume they are made only by ripping off poor farmers, exploiting child labour, plundering the planet’s resources and despoiling the environment?

Perhaps we should not care. There is a theory – though frankly, most of us would rather be spotted coming out of a sex shop than caught subscribing to it – that globalisation, trade liberalisation and Adam Smith’s invisible hand will take care of world poverty if only they are given free rein. And since the richer people get, the more they care about sustainability, that will take care of the environment, too. Anyway, we can always go and strip-mine some other planet if all the stuff on earth runs out.

But getting back to ethical products: based on past experience and market research, conventional wisdom used to have it that sweatshop-free and eco-friendly goods would rarely command anything other than market niches because the overwhelming majority of shoppers were more interested in price and brand attributes than a product’s ethical credentials.

Now, however, I think what is happening is that those ethical credentials are becoming brand attributes themselves.

To elaborate: previously, the big problem ethical products faced in an era of cynicism and ironic detachment was the fact that they were seldom thought of as cool. They were associated with middle-aged, middle-class baby-boomers who, a generation ago, had adopted love, peace and the worship of nature as part of their romantic revolution against the bourgeois culture of their parents. The baby-boomers’ children tended to regard those boomer attitudes in much the same way as they did Levi’s jeans: as something your father wore.

What changed? A couple of things. First, celebrities discovered the advantages of supporting a good cause. Under increasing media scrutiny, they realised it was no longer acceptable just to wallow in the wealth and fame that society bestowed on them; it was a lot better for their images if they could claim to be using that wealth and fame to give something back to the world. Also, to the extent that it increased their exposure, it was cash in the bank. And, like beauty pageant contestants pledging to end world hunger, many found it added an illusion of depth to their otherwise vacuous characters.

So celebrities helped make good causes fashionable. But something else happened, too. Perhaps reflecting more cynical times, the idea of charitable giving changed. Once, it meant just that: giving, in a private act of self-denial, to a cause. Now, it is less often a donation and more often a transaction – a two-way process in which the charity benefits but you get something out of it too, such as the thrill of attending a fund-raising rock concert or the fascination of undertaking a sponsored trek in some exotic, distant land.

Ethical products are the most obvious example. Each time you make a purchase, you get something back as well as feeling you are doing some good. But the real bonus is that, in most cases, these products are on display as evidence of your goodness. Like those self-congratulatory wrist bands that scream “I just gave $1 to charity!”, a bottle of Ethos water or an American Express Red card proclaim to all who see them what a praiseworthy person you are.

At least the people coming out of Coco de Mer have an excuse. After all, who, apart from their partners, are ever going to see their purchases? Perhaps the person with the spanking paddle is the only true altruist left.

© 2005 Financial Times Information Limited.