Ethical Fashion

by Arwa Aburawa

There seems to be no foreseen resolution. We're constantly battling our conscious with questions of whether organic, fair-trade or sweatshop-free clothing is more important. So, even though your new year’s resolution was to be more green, you’re left wondering if heading for the hills is your only realistic option. Well, don’t pack your camping gear just yet as I’ve put together some basic rules and nifty tricks that will save the fashion-conscious student money whilst flaunting truly individual style.

Ethical shopping just like any kind of shopping, it’s personal. Just because something is organic and fair-trade doesn’t mean that you have to buy it if you don’t need it. Within ethical shopping there is a wide range of causes which are supported and you have to decide which is important to you. If environmental damage and climate change is something that you’re passionate about, then seek out organic clothing with natural dyes and avoid plastic shopping bags. If you’re more concerned with workers rights, then Sweatshop-free clothing is what you’re after. You can find tons of local organisations that sell what you support at websites like Ethical Junction (www.ethical-junction.org).

The ethical shoppers mantra is reduce, reuse and recycle. So although the growing ethical market may be offering new and usually pricey world-saving products, it’s important to remember that not buying anything can be just as powerful. Avoiding massive stores when shopping is also important as these multi-corporations provide your bargains at human and environmental costs such as poorly paid, badly treated workers and nasty pollution.

Recycling clothes is one of the cheapest and most ethical ways to rejuvenate your cupboard and refresh stuff you already have. Charity shopping is the best way to stumble across really original, vintage items at a bargain price. If you’re having no luck in the city centre, my advice is to jump on a bus or train and visit charity shops further out.

Another way to recycle is to swap. Swapping clothes parties are a really fun way to meet up with friends and get some new stuff without spending a penny. All you need to do is bring along around 5 clean items and let the swapping begin. And if you’re worried that you and your friends are all different sizes just bring along other things like bags and jewelery to swap. Recycling uses up no new resources and you can support some really worthwhile causes along the way.

Flour Power: Ethical Consumer Ratings

Best Buys as of July/August 2008

As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.

Bacheldre Watermill organic flour (01588 620489) is ground using ancient stones in a mid-Wales mill.

Glebe Farm organic flour (01487 773 282) is ground in Cambridgeshire - sometimes using local windmills.

Little Salkeld Watermill (01768 881523) sell a range of organic and biodynamic certified flour ground in its Cumbrian watermill.

Doves Farm organic flour is best of the more widely available brands because of its commitment to organic farming through its entire product range.

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Flour Power

Rob Harrison and Arwa Aburawa look at how UK consumers buying flour are slowly changing the faceof agriculture towards a more sustainable future.

In a new age of anxiety over food and fuel shortages the BBC News website recently featured an article on how to grow your own wheat and grind it into flour.(1) And while most of us can't go to these lengths, one question we wanted to explore was the extent to which flour suppliers were involved in the shift to biofuels behind some of these concerns. Do any of the common brands of flour come from the huge agribusinesses accused of diverting crops from food plates to car engines, causing hunger and food riots? Of the brands on the table we found evidence that only one, Allinson, was clearly linked to biofuels projects through its parent company British Sugar.(2)

The companies supplying flour to UK consumers split fairly neatly into four distinct groups:
The super-ethical brands: Glebe Farm, Little Salkeld and Bacheldre offer genuinely sustainable organic products ground with ancient technologies of wind and water power.

The family milling firms: Matthews, Marriages and Shipton Mill are medium sized traditional firms supplying bakeries and consumers with growing organic ranges.

The big flour millers: Premier Foods (new owner of Rank Hovis McDougall) and Allinson have dominant but declining market shares because of their failure to offer organic options.(3)

The supermarket own-brands: Waitrose discloses the manufacturer of its own-brand organic flour and therefore is ranked differently from the other companies on the table.

Brand	Rating
Bacheldre Watermill Organic Flour [O]	16
Glebe Farm Organic Flour [O]	16
Little Salkeld Organic Flour [0]	16
Costswold Organic Flour [O]	14
Shipton Mill Organic Flour	14
Doves Farm Organic Flour [O]	13.5
Marriages Organic Flour [O]	13
Waitrose Organic Flour	13
Carrs Flour	10
Be Ro Flour	7
Homepride Flour	7
Hovis Flour	7
McDougals Flour	7
Allinson organic flour [O]	3.5
Morrisons Organic Flour	3
Allinson Flour	2.5
Tesco Organic Flour [O]	1.5
Sainsbury's Flour	1
ASDA Flour	0

The ratings on this scorecard were last updated from our database at www.ethiscore.org on 01 December 2008. The higher the rating, the more ethical the brand.

PRICE COMPARISON

All the companies on the table produce a very wide range of flours. There are spelt flours, gluten-free flours, wholemeal flours, short flours, bread-making flours and many more.
For the price element of this report we concentrated on plain white flour and organic where possible. It is interesting to note that quite a few ethical choices are actually cheaper than the best-selling brands of Homepride and McDougalls.

Brand	Average Price per Kg
Sainsbury	24p
Asda	50p
Hovis	57.2p
Morrisons Organic	80p
Allinson	82.4p
Waitrose Organic	83p
Tesco Organic	95p
Doves Farm Organic (Best Buy)	96p
Cotswold Organic	97p
Homepride	£1.02
Carrs	£1.02
Be-Ro	£1.03
McDougalls	£1.06
Marriages Organic	£1.19
Shipton Mill Organic	£1.26
Bacheldre Watermill (Best Buy)	£1.32
Glebe Farm Organic (Best Buy)	£1.50
Little Salkeld Watermill (Best Buy)	£1.63

References

1 World warned on food price spiral 10th March 2008 BBC News website 2 The Ecologist March 2007 3 Mintel Home Baking August 2006 4 www.carrs-milling.com viewed 18/6/08 5 www.dovesfarm.co.uk viewed 18/6/08 6 Office of Fair Trading statement 25/4/2008