About

What is conscious shopping, who is a conscious consumer?

Classical consumer protection has its answer to this question; however, we believe that the answer is one-sided and incomplete. If we wanted to exaggerate: according to normal consumer protection, you are a conscious consumer if you do not let yourself be ripped off, know the rights of consumers and you claim them as well, you have information about the quality of a product and services linked to it, and you select the best offer.

All these are indeed very important. At the same time, we believe that nowadays conscious consumption has to mean more than simply representing and claiming our rights and interests. It is important that we be ethically and environmentally conscious as well, meaning that we also consider others, not only ourselves. Those other people can be living ones, or our children, grandchildren yet to be born, or not human beings: animals, plants, and ecologic systems. Thus, we, as conscious consumers try to make decisions, of which not only we benefit, but the world itself as well. Our decisions reflect basic values: our faith in justice, fairness and ecologic responsibility.

Why is that important?

As it is often said, we live in a consumer society. This basically means that both the economy and society are organized around consumption. Companies seek to guess and even more to influence what consumers would like, as this is the key to their success on the market. Consumption though is much more than a simple economic act: it has a societal, cultural and even psychological significance. Advertisements and commercial media influence more what we think and how we talk about the world than “high culture”. Our personal identity is also insolvably intertwined with the image of the products we buy.

Thus consumption is more than a simple material act. Great: then it should indeed be more. Everyone needs to know what he/she does is valuable and meaningful. Advertisements strive to make us believe so: they say buying a car is really self-actualization, by which we receive – in a material form - higher level values, such as freedom and independence.

As conscious consumers, we try to look beyond the semi-transparent curtain of advertisements, and think about what we exactly do when buying this or that product. What is the real meaning and value of that product? Do we support child labor or other human suffering with it in a distant country? Or do we support a company engaged in gene manipulation, or that uses animal testing even for cosmetic objectives? Does the product we buy create more garbage than the tiny satisfaction we gain through consuming it? Or, on the contrary, the product we buy is not only healthy, but it was also produced among environment-friendly circumstances, by a company that excels with its responsible attitude?

Consumer society does not only mean that the phenomenon of consumption is important, but also that its volume is significant as well. Modern economy is spread around the world through globalization. There are two basic problems with this fact: one is that we know little about products coming from far away countries. We would probably be shocked if we knew that the cocoa in our chocolate was harvested by slave children, or that the trendy sneakers were made in humiliating and exploiting working conditions somewhere in Southeast Asia. The other basic problem is that today’s economy is not ecologically sustainable. All the serious researches on environmental protection prove that we are using too much energy and too many materials from our environment, then letting back too much pollution and garbage into it. Doing this we cause irreversible ecologic damages. According to the statistics it is not only the growing number of the world’s population, which is responsible for the ecologic catastrophe, but also the citizens of the developed world, living a prodigal life: 80% of all materials and energy are used by 20% of the world’s population living in the developed world (among them Hungary)! Or if we turn it around: 80% of the world’s population has access to 20% of the resources...

Let us not believe that whatever happens far away from us with the environmental state of the world will not have an effect on us. Globalization does not only mean we have access to products from all over the planet, but also that in one way or another, we will - at one point - also have to face the dramatic environmental and societal consequences of our deeds.

What can we do?

We can change. What can be more promising in a consumer society than the fact that our decisions on consumption can change the way things go? Sometimes it happens fast and in a visible way, see the example of some successful consumer boycotts. Sometimes it goes slower, but hopefully deeper as well, such as organic agriculture or the growing utilization of solar energy and wind power.

We should not think we are helpless! The ancient truth still stands: we might not achieve much alone, but if our will and actions are added to those of others, we can go farther. It might also be that it is simply a good feeling to do the right thing... as Spinoza said: happiness is not the reward for virtue, but it is virtue itself.

Our personal conviction is that today’s economy should fundamentally change to become socially and ecologically sustainable. We all have our special way to contribute to this change. However, we do consume, all of us. We are more consumers than citizens. Around 5 million Hungarians vote, while considerably more people go shopping: basically everyone except for very small children. In Hungary, approximately 9 million people make decisions of consumptions of some kind every day, or at least weekly. This is a huge power. If only part of these decisions – hopefully a growing part of them – are ethically and environmentally conscious, that already means a lot.

We created our home page to raise the attention to the significance of ethically and environmentally conscious shopping. We mostly seek to ask questions, but we also try to find answers. We talk about serious and important things, but we do not want to make too much fuss about it. We believe that important issues can also be interesting. Conscious consumption is not only important, but it is also joyful.

We would like more and more people to get involved in thinking together with us. We try to put useful information and facts we got to know on our homepage. We also work on a database for conscious consumers. We hope that this homepage will not remain a means of one-way communication. We invite you to share your ideas, suggestions and comments concerning the structure and content of this page, as well as about opportunities for conscious consumption. We do not need to agree on every point: we hope to have constructive and interesting debates on our forums. The only basic assumption we need to accept is that our money is a vote - either we want it or not.