Going green is an unaffordable luxury

Green living costs too much - but it needn't cost the Earth, argues Malcolm Wheatley

Walk through any supermarket, and it's easy to spot items sold as 'green' or 'ethical'. From chickens to chocolate, and washing-up liquid to coffee, the shelves are laden with products offering to salve your conscience.

I usually walk on by, and I'll bet many lovemoney.com readers do the same.

It's not difficult to see why. However much we all want to do the 'right' thing, the right thing usually carries a hefty price ticket. Ordinary tea and coffee is cheaper than 'fair trade' tea and coffee, for instance. Sustainably-sourced tissues cost more than regular ones. And so on.

Niche vs. Mainstream

I suspect that the real problem here is economies of scale. 'Green' and 'ethical' are seen as niche interests, and so have tiny production runs compared to mainstream offerings. Worse, they're often manufactured and sold by much smaller companies, adding to costs.

Is there an alternative?

I happen to think there is. What's required is for mainstream brand managers to get the message that consumers want green and ethical business practices built-in as standard.

It's happened before. Take pollution, for instance - I'm old enough to remember much higher levels of pollution than we'd dream of tolerating today. My journey to school in a Northern mill town used to take me over a river that stank with chemical effluent. Dead for decades, it now has fish swimming in it.

Leading The Way

Britain's supermarkets come in for a lot of stick. Tesco, for instance, has become the supermarket that many people love to loathe.

But collectively, supermarkets have a huge say in the manufacture and sourcing of the products that go on their shelves - especially the own-label products that they sell. And on a small-but-growing number of ranges, green and ethical is the default option.

And better still, you don't have to shop at upscale Waitrose or Marks & Spencer to get that default option.

Sainsbury's, for example, has made major strides in initiatives as diverse as sustainably-sourced fish and the use of compostable packaging, thereby building-in green and ethical practices as standard. In short, there isn't a cheaper non-green offering. The Co-op, too, is another mainstream supermarket with decent green and ethical offerings.

And what I also like with these green-as-standard products is that in many cases the own-label products are not only greener and more ethical than the major brand, but also cheaper -- Sainsbury's canned tuna being a case in point.

As a result, I'm happy to buy such products. More to the point, perhaps, it's starting to influence where I shop. And from the retailers' perspective, that perhaps is the point.

Not On Message

That said, not every supermarket's buying team has got the message.

TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, for instance, have long argued for an improvement in the conditions in which chickens are raised. Fearnley-Whittingstall's TV programmes on the issue - where he tries to persuade Tesco executives to change their mind - make gripping viewing.

And chickens are a perfect example of the 'walk on by' effect I referred to earlier. I simply can't justify the price premium for free-range chicken, and don't buy it unless it's being sold cheaply due to an imminently expiring sell-by date.

But I'd happily pay the much smaller premium that Fearnley-Whittingstall reckons would apply if every chicken was reared in acceptable conditions - a premium measured in pence, not pounds.

Raising The Standard

As individuals, our power is limited. Practically, we can do little more than making a point of buying green-as-standard products - unless we want to cough-up the extra money for green-as-luxury offerings.

Collectively, as consumers and voters, we can achieve rather more. Green and ethical standards have improved enormously over the last ten or fifteen years. I'm hopeful that we'll see even more improvement over the next ten or fifteen years.

Green may be an unaffordable luxury today - but not tomorrow.

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