Review: How good are you?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading How Good Are You?, by journalist Julian Lee. In it, he charts his investigations into the ethical choices we all face when we’re spending money. This includes environmental topics, as well as social issues like sweatshops, Fair Trade and truth in advertising. There are several chapters about food products, also cleaning products, clothes, investment, marketing and flying.

Lee was asked to write a newspaper article about ethical consumerism – as he looked into the issue, he realised that it although it was important for people to work out what the right choice is in everyday situations, it was also very difficult. Businesses will still try to get away with doing the bare minimum while claiming that they’re doing everything possible to be good corporate citizens, so we need ways to figure out if they’re telling the truth. Once we understand the issues, we can reward companies who are doing the right thing. Ethical consumers are still a small part of the market in Australia, but it’s one of the fastest growing segments.

Lee writes about the decisions he faces, which will be familiar to anyone who’s wandered into a supermarket, and talks us through the implications of the options available to us. He explains why the issues are important, and describes the effects on his family and their lifestyle. Although he discusses worldwide impacts, his examples are relevant to Aussies, featuring Australian brands, statistics and interviews.

Each chapter ends with suggestions for what we can do, grouped into easy, hard, and harder. These were very practical and achievable things, even most of the harder ones. Admittedly, I got a bit of a head swell when his recommendations were things I do already, like using natural cleaning products, composting, buying free-range and writing letters to businesses about their practices As for the stuff I don’t already do… well, knowing what to aim for is great. For example, the sections on investment and on fish made me realise I wasn’t doing enough, but Lee puts forward ideas for what I can do to fix that. I got some good ideas for things I can change in my own life, and will be writing about them here as I do them.

The book has quotes from many corporations and businesses about their ethical decisions (or lack of them). What struck me was that over and over, they keep saying that they’d make more ethical choices if they thought consumers wanted them to. So it comes back to this: in spite of all the general goodwill among the public for doing the right thing by the environment and other people, are we willing to put our money where our mouths are? Are we willing to demand better practices? I’ve made a start on this, but I could be doing more. This book has underlined the importance of contacting the companies who want our money, so we can let them know what we want in return.

Recommended?
Yes – I think this book will be useful to anyone in Australia who wants to learn how to spend their money wisely. And really, who doesn’t want to know that? You’ll get an understanding of the basic issues, and guidelines for how to make ethical consumer decisions. I was already aware of the environmental issues, and some of the social issues, but still had plenty to learn about corporate regulations and the fashion industry – because the book is a broad overview, I think most people will find they’ve got something to learn from it.

The website for How Good Are You? features interviews with Lee and extracts from the book if you’d like to know more.

Earth Hour

This Saturday, people around the world will be turning off their lights for an hour between 8 and 9pm. It’s called Earth Hour, and it’s an event started in Sydney last year to raise awareness of the things anyone can do to help battle climate change. I joined in last year, lighting some candles and chilling out for a while, and I’ll be doing it again this year. Perth has joined in this year too (news.com.au, via Wilma at O2WA).

As always, these sorts of events attract some criticism. Some people reckon that turning off lights for an hour is a drop in the ocean of what needs to be done. But I think it’s a drop in the ocean we didn’t have before, and if hundreds of thousands of people join in (over 200,000 have signed up at last count), then all those drops add up to a lot. Individual action doesn’t look like much by itself; but what is community action except lots of individuals doing the same thing together?

You can sign up for Earth Hour at the website (not essential, just nice to do). Then just switch off at 8pm on Saturday. Take a bubblebath, or tell ghost stories, take your pets for a summer night’s walk… whatever you like. Afterwards, check in at the website to see more ways you can save energy in your home, at work and at school.

Painterly pursuits

Over the Easter long weekend, Dave and I painted our bedroom. Previously it had been a bland beige, now it is a lovely medium blue. We used an eco-friendly paint and picked up a handy tool for reducing the water you need to clean up afterwards.

Paints are usually full of VOCs – Volatile Organic Compounds. These are chemicals used in many home furnishing products, and as they are released into the atmosphere they can make you sick, and contribute to air pollution. It’s generally a good idea to avoid or minimise them. Treehugger has a good summary about VOCs in paints.

The last time we painted, we went to Painted Earth in Fremantle to try some Porter’s Paints, because we’d seen them at the Sustainable Home show last year. We were really happy with the Porter’s, which have a great range of colours, low-VOC and no-VOC options, and seem committed to a low-impact business model. There was no paint odor and it was a quality product.

However, we didn’t have time for a long drive to Fremantle just for paint this weekend. We went to Bunnings and found several low-VOC paint options. We went with British Paints, because they had the colour we wanted. Many of the low-VOC paints we saw were marketed based on their low odour rather than their eco-friendliness. This seems fair enough to me, as I imagine there are more people annoyed by the smell of paint than by damage to the planet – as long as they end up with the eco-friendly paint I don’t care why they choose it! And hopefully they’ll come to expect low-VOCs as a standard feature for paint, demanding it in the future. As far as I can tell, the British Paints brand isn’t as low on the VOCs as the Porter’s version: there has been a bit of a paint smell, although it’s much less than you’d get with normal paints.

We also bought a tool for cleaning roller-brushes, based on it’s claim that using it would reduce the amount of water you use for cleaning from about 20L to about 6L. The Rota Cota Roller Cleaner is a scraper attached to a tube. First we used the scraper to remove most of the paint, saving it for re-use later. Then we stuck the roller in the tube, attached our hose to one end, and used a small amount of water forced through the tube to rinse the brush. I found things went faster (and therefore used less water) if if I did the scrape-and-rinse twice instead of persisting with the rinsing until the water became clear. I’m not sure we quite reached that 6L target on the weekend, but I’m pretty sure we used to use way more than 20L to clean up using our old method, so that’s an improvement.

All in all, it was a productive weekend: we’ve finished a project we’d been putting off for some time, and managed to make the more eco-friendly choices while we did it.

Happy Easter!

SaveTheBilby.icemedia.com.au

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter, and enjoys their long weekend. I’m trying to be a bit healthy and have asked people not to buy me any chocolates!

But I wouldn’t want my nieces to go without a little treat, so I got them some Bilby chocolates from Darrell Lea instead of the usual eggs and rabbits. A percentage of the price goes to the Save The Bilby fund. Bilbies are cute little desert mammals who are endangered by feral cats and foxes, and having farms move into the areas where they used to live.

If you’re not into chocolate, you might want to try traditional egg-dyeing instead. Curbly has a video demonstration of how you can dye eggs using food easily found in your kitchen. I haven’t dyed eggs since I was a kid – I want to try it again with my nieces, but I think they’re a little bit too young yet. Maybe next year!

Tasmanian Devils

Today I saw a National Geographic video on YouTube about the Tasmanian Devil (via Grist). It was good to be reminded of one of our unique animals that’s currently close to extinction. The Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service has some more sound clips and videos for you to watch, as does the DPIW site aimed at children and schools. Even though Devils are cranky little buggers, I still think they’re cute

Tassie Devils are a carnivorous marsupial not found anywhere outside of Australia, or even on the mainland. Well, at least until we sent some to Princess Mary in Denmark as a baby shower present (what’s wrong with a nice bunch of flowers, anyway?). They were nearly hunted to extinction by the first European settlers, but in the 1940s were officially protected. They play an important (and yucky) part in their ecosystem by eating dead animals, which prevents the spread of disease and insects. Without them, feral cats and imported foxes move into the area and prey on over 70 species of native birds and smaller mammals, as they’ve already done on the mainland.

Their numbers in the wild were increasing after they were protected, but now they face a new threat: Devil Facial Tumour Disease, which is one of only 3 types of cancer that can be caught as a disease. Scientists researching the cancer have found that the Devils are suffering particularly badly because they have very little genetic diversity. Having been hunted to such low numbers in the wild, and then losing habitat to farming and logging, leaves them in very small and in-bred groups that have lower resistance to disease. This is something that could happen to any animal or plant that’s pushed to small, isolated areas. Researchers are trying to breed healthy Devils in captivity, with the aim of releasing them back into the wild to increase the variety in the population.

If you want to help the Tassie Devils, check in with TassieDevil.com.au and make a donation for use in developing tests and vaccines. If you’re in Tasmania, you might be able to volunteer some time to help with monitoring local populations and breeding programs. The website also lists zoos and national parks where you can see one for yourself – Perth Zoo apparently has some, I’ll have to visit for a look.