Submitted by Dokayn t3_z10bs2 in BuyItForLife
Is there a way to find out if companies from which you buy products really produce sustainably and morally okay? I don't want to buy from companies that support child labour or base their sustainability on a lie.
Which internet sites would you recommend for obtaining information?
https://betterworldshopper.org
This is my personal go-to. It was built by a sociologist who was sick of how hard it was for a consumer to make decisions on a day-to-day basis since the information is hidden in layers of companies.
I have their pocket book and their app and I check them in store any time I need to make a different product choice. But primarily I pick a company for each product in my life and I try and stick with that product forever to minimize having to do the research over and over again. I have my shampoo, my conditioner, my soaps, clothes, ect.
The other way to go about it is to just avoid the F companies. They’re the largest and own all the little companies so it’s a task in it self so by avoiding the worst ones you’re accomplishing a lot
The only thing I don't like about the site is that there are no detailed ratings or how exactly the rating comes about.
That puts way too much too much power in the hands of one individual. There are plenty of times I'm told I should be enraged by someone or something without details. I'm not going to participate in sinking anyone or any thing without knowing exactly why.
They share what they base their ratings on as a whole and then score the companies. Yes, they don’t have info on each company.
I use it as a quick guide and then double check every company before I decide and then stick with those products forever
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I'm a little skeptical about that site as I see Google and Youtube showing up on there under A- companies. As well as Honest Tea, which is owned by Coca-Cola (and now discontinued).
I think you’re right to be skeptical. I don’t think it’s kept very up to date because it was created by a single person. I use it as a starting guide because it is easy to use and the rankings include human rights. I often use it as a rapid reference when in the store and then double check the product decisions I start leaning towards individually
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It’s not specifically geared toward rating sustainability/ethics, but ImportYeti has a ton of logistics data that might help with supply chain transparency.
Honestly it's nice that you mean well but the waste you or the brand creates making the products does not compare to the waste from all the warehouses that ship it to you waste in plastic every day.
This is the problem with sustainable marketing.. it's not about real sustainability it's about getting your brand over.
If you want true sustainability than grow or build it yourself.
Otherwise get the most quality durable item you can so that you don't have to purchase it again and the waste that's entailed with creating, and more so shipping it to you is non-existent.
A product could say it is super sustainable because it's made out of bamboo.. but if you have to keep buying them because bamboo breaks then there's all that waste from making and shipping you multiple products.
Check out Cluey! They are a startup tackling this exact problem: https://clueyconsumer.com
Agreed. 95% of it can be answered with the country of origin tag...If not absolutely, it can give a really good sense of the probability of obvious human rights violations.
Fact is if a company prides itself in their manufacturing standards and ethics they will publish a report documenting the supply chain. If they don't brag about it, they're probably not doing it. (Same as I tell people looking for tech like laptops...if they don't brag about having an SSD, or the screen architecture, it's bad and they don't want you to notice).
For clothes, check out Good on You website. You can also check if the company is certified B corp. Other than that google the name of company and add "controversies" to see if there is anything on them. Basically if it is a big, esp. multinational company or its subsidiary it is most likely unethical and terrible for the evironment, or was in the past. Same with billionaires.
Obligatory #fuckNestle
In addition to B Corp, other third party certifications like Fair Trade and Blue Sign are a little more specialized but are generally good indicators of labor conditions.
3rd party certifications should be more objective/fair than what the company will say about itself. There are so many now, Made Safe, GOTS, FSC, RWS, C2C. Other than that, does the company repair their products, have a long warranty, sell their products used, etc? Here are some websites:
https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/ https://earthhero.com (like Amazon, but only sustainable products) https://www.treehugger.com (Lists of sustainable products)
This is a very helpfull answer. Thank you!
Do you have any more sites like "Good on you"?
I have the same question. I use goodonyou but want to know if other industries have similar resources. Thanks for making this post! Saving it for future reference
If you want sustainability - do not buy anything new, regardless of how it was made or how long it will last.
Unless that thing outputs something. There is far more to a product then just the manufacturing of it. So there is the labour that made it and the environmental footprint to build it. But then something like an appliance will use energy over its life. So whether something is more sustainable depends on the entire lifecycle footprint from manufacturing to end of life. Also the location you are, and the way you make electricity, will all have a factor.
An example where I live is a car. Based on your example I should buy a used gas car rather then a new EV. But a new BEV will have a far smaller carbon footprint even with the manufacturing one here because of how clean the electricity is. So if the goal is the reduction of carbon emissions then I am better to buy a new BEV then a used gas car. So keeping something running just because it was already manufactured is not always the most sustainable option.
Buy a used gas car.
When they are no longer available get a used alternative fuel vehicle.
You understand there is a huge carbon footprint to generate the electricity necessary for an e-vehicle and their batteries will never biodegrade, never.
You understand there is a huge carbon foot print for burning gas. Again what matters is which one is worse. The math says the BEV is better in my case. So buying a used gas car would increase my carbon footprint over buying a new BEV. My suggestion is you do the math on this to see whether you are correct.
I'm in the market for a new car, and opting for a used gas than and new hybrid based on the mileage I intend to drive. It won't be a daily driver, so I've calculated that the difference would only be about a metric ton on GHG emissions which I can easily offset, versus buying a new car made from virgin materials.
Sounds like you have done the math and it is better for you to go that way. FOr me it is much better to buy a new BEV where I am instead of a used gas car based on the amount I drive and how clean the grid is. My comment was about how you have to be careful making blanket statements about what is better as there are many examples where it is better to buy something new then to keep using something that is older.
It's really better to buy a new BEV vs a used gas vehicle? That's interesting. How old are we talking? I figured the older you get, the better it is, until you hit a tipping point where fuel economy is really bad.
If you're driving a lot of miles in a year, too, I'm sure that makes a big difference. The more miles you drive over the lifespan of the vehicle the better a battery vehicle is.
Really, I feel like it actually depends on how long you plan on keeping the vehicle. E.g. f you keep a battery electric vehicle for 25 years after you purchase it, there's no way in heck any gas vehicle is going to be that over 25 years; new OR used. Obviously, the batteries lasting that long is doubtful, but the point remains.
Whether it is better depends on the factors used. Operationally the numbers are easy to do then you just have to figure out the manufacturing emissions. But yes in my case here it is better to buy a new BEV. The numbers are actually pretty easy to do from a carbon emissions point of view especially for the operation.
Here is an example of the math and I am doing it in metric because that's what we use here. I drive around 24,000 kms a year. So if I bought a gas car (or kept using one that I already bought) I would use 1882 liters of gasoline to drive that distance if the car got 7.84 L per 100 km (30 MPG). Each liter of fuel emits 2.3kg of carbon when burned and then there is another 0.4 kg of carbon per liter to extract and refine oil into gas. So a year i am looking at 5081 kgs of CO2 to drive that distance in the used gas car.
My BEV gets around 6.2 kms per kWh in efficiency on average. So to drive 24,000 kms will require 3871 kWh of electricity. Charging losses will add about 10% onto that number so make the number 4100 kWh a year used. Our grid produces about 45 grams of CO2 per kWh produced. So that is 184.5 kgs of CO2 or 28 times less CO2 then the gas car above.
See I think this is where people just don't really understand these numbers. They believe that the gas car and BEV might be far closer in operational emissions then they are. And they possibly could be on a dirtier grid. But on a clean grid the amount of CO2 from the car is almost negligible. In fact my car emits less CO2 in operation then I breath out in a year. And based on this (a negative view of electric cars) a 75 kWh battery will emit about 4500 kgs of CO2 to build the battery.
https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-footprint-of-electric-cars-vs-gasoline/
So that is a tiny amount compared to the 15,243 kgs of CO2 the gas car will emit in operation alone over the next 3.
So again it is far better here to buy a new BEV then keep driving a used gas car if you want to reduce your carbon emissions where I live and with my numbers. Where you live and with your numbers it might be different.
A gas car battery never biodegrades. In addition the claims you are making about EV's are straight out of gas company funded studies. It might be the case the footprint of a new EV is greater than a specific used car but you cannot generalize that for all ev's.
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Sometimes that does not work to be the better option. There are times when new is going to be better over the long term, for example most medical implants, or in cases of things that use toxic or otherwise less ideal chemicals like old fridges running on CFC refrigerants. Reusing is ideal for most things but not everything.
Even just the extra energy of using something that is less efficient could mean it is better to make a new one rather then keep using it.
I’m so tired of this misinformation. The batteries get recycled. It’s really simple.
How long will it take a batter to biodegrade once it can no longer be recycled?
I don’t want to nitpick, but an EV takes a long time for its use to cover the carbon output it takes to build one. You must consider the removal of forests to mine for lithium, the fuel it takes to transport this lithium, the energy it takes to produce them into cells and packs, etc. then to transfer these incredibly dense (heavy) materials large distances to be put into a car. At the end of the day, hybrids provide you with the balance of reducing carbon use from gasoline, and reducing the manufacturing shortcomings of a full on EV.
Plus, by the time your EV starts to become beneficial from a carbon perspective, it’s either close to end of life (EOL) or well beyond, requiring the purchase of a new EV.
I really don’t have faith that Lithium Iron Phosphate or any other lithium battery is going to magically solve our environmental/climate concerns. It’s like a magic bullet. We need to completely retool our economy and consumption to truly cut down on carbon footprint. At the end of the day, there’s really nothing any of can do about it. It sucks, but this is the reality.
I am including that carbon cost to manufacture in that. So even with the carbon cost to manufacturer the new BEV I am still better off with it rather then a used gas car. I did another comment further down where I did the math for someone else.
People tend to vastly overestimate the emissions they think it takes to build a car whether electric or gas. And they vastly underestimate the emissions in operation of ICE vehicles. And the source of electricity also matters. I was saying this to show that there isn't a blanket answer that is correct here. It would depend on many different factors.
And it does reduce it that much. Where I live when you factor in the total lifecycle (manufacturing, operation, and EOL) a BEV has a carbon footprint that is 85% less then a comparable gas powered car.
I know we all want to do a better job of reducing our carbon footprint, and I have no doubt that you’ve done your research with this, but the embodied energy it takes to produce lithium iron phosphate (or equivalent) batteries varies wildly for a bunch of reasons.
Per the attached source (below, emphasis mine): Virtually every feature of the fuel cycle for conventional cars is well understood and narrowly bounded, significantly monitored if not tightly regulated and largely assumption-free. That’s not the case for EVs.
For example, one review of 50 academic studies found estimates for embodied emissions to fabricate a single EV battery ranged from a low of about eight tons to as high as 20 tons of CO2. Another recent technical analysis put the range at about four to 14 tons. The high end of those ranges is nearly as much CO2 as is produced by the lifetime of fuel burned by an efficient conventional car. Again, that’s before the EV is delivered to a customer and driven its first mile.
The uncertainties come from inherent — and likely unresolvable — variabilities in both the quantity and type of energy used in the battery fuel cycle with factors that depend on geography and process choices, many often proprietary. Analyses of the embodied energy show a range from two to six barrels of oil (in energy-equivalent terms) is used to fabricate a battery that can store the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Thus, any calculation of embodied emissions for an EV battery is an estimate based on myriad assumptions. The fact is, no one can measure today’s or predict tomorrow’s EV carbon dioxide “mileage.”
I do believe you have good intentions here, but I wouldn’t be so confident in your calculations. I’m in the energy industry (utility power) and I have very little faith that this technology is going to solve all of our issues. We’re going to end up with MORE waste, because these vehicles don’t last as long, and in order to recapture a fraction of lithium, you have to incinerate these cells, which produce more carbon.
In addition, I believe that the supply chain for lithium is going to get just as greasy as it became with oil. There will be a handful of countries with vast amounts of lithium that will likely control the price, similar to OPEC.
I’m not going to buy an EV any time soon for various other reasons as well, primarily the fact that there aren’t enough charging stations, and the cost for me to assume the change from my conventional gas vehicle is prohibitive. The only real solution to reduce your footprint is to simply travel less. Which, for some, is not an option. So here we are with this magic pill. I don’t believe in it quite yet.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/22/the-tough-calculus-of-emissions-and-the-future-of-evs/amp/
You can write all you want but unless you can point out where my numbers are wrong then it is a wasted effort. If I wrong then my math would be wrong. So it should be pretty easy to run the numbers to show me where I went wrong.
I’m not saying your math is wrong, I’m saying the numbers you are basing your math on are unreliable, that’s all. EVs are not as great as people think they are, is my point.
I give numbers and math and you give feelings. Then you say the numbers are unreliable but give no reason why. If the numbers are wrong you should be able to provide your own. But you keep writing words but have nothing to substantiate them. So again I say that your words are useless without the numbers to back it up.
I provided you a source with plenty of information that explains my point.
But can't show me where I made a mistake with my numbers. Again you wrote a lot of words but unless you can challenge directly those words are meaningless. You can't just say that my numbers are wrong for reasons that are unexplained. Should be very easy to do the math with the correct numbers. I mean the only way you can know if my numbers are wrong is if you have others. So do the math and show me I am wrong.
This is why I love math. There is no BS. You can't write out long essays that obscure the truth. The base numbers are either right or wrong. So if they are wrong it should be pretty easy to point out which ones are wrong or to do your own math. Strangely I don't see a lot of numbers in what you are writing. So do the math or don't. But don't tell me I am wrong when you can't even put a few numbers together yourself to prove you are right.
You’re obviously not understanding my point or read the article. It’s impossible to perform calculations when everything is variable. Enjoy your EV, brah. I’m not trying to keep you from that.
I understand exactly what you are saying. I just don't think it makes any sense. If it does then every life cycle study that has ever been done is wrong. The variation in the numbers is because of differences in location. So the electricity in X place is dirtier then somewhere else and you have to adjust for that. These variables are well known. You just have to do the math for each location. This is exactly what I did and why I said that here it is better. Somewhere else it might not. See understanding this allows you to use the correct numbers.
So I will say the same thing again. Unless you are able to show which of my numbers are wrong, based on my location, then you can just stop writing anything at all because it is meaningless. Seriously it is like you are telling me that 2+2 = 5 but then can't tell me how you reached the conclusion. If you are right it should be extremely easy to show that using the correct numbers. Now if you are arguing that it is completely unknowable then what kind of stupid argument is that? You need to have words with every scientific publication that has ever published a life cycle study on this because they will all be wrong too.
EVs might not be a perfect fix but it's hard to argue against them as being the future. They run primarily on electricity, which can be generated renewably through solar and wind, and while there are obvious and significant problems to be solved, Rome was not built in a day. Think how far automotive technology moved in just its first three decades.
I think that it's important that consumer embrace EVs, because increased demand will incentivize competition and thus these problems will be taken on.
What other possibilities are available, really?
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Just make a post on this sub about how Company X has the most ethical business practices, and people will go to the ends of Earth to prove you wrong.
Assume they don’t and you’ll rarely be wrong
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
But doesnt mean you shouldn't try to be ethical, some are more ethical than others
One thing you can do is lobby for regulation like NY State Senate Bill S748.
We do not know how well this will work, but it is pretty far reaching as written.
You could advocate for a federal version maybe, with emphasis on the aspects that you personally value.
Another trick is to reuse and upcycle a lot and buy local, though these tricks are not always possible or useful.
That's actually really simple: they do not.
Buycott app may help
The one listed above was the first one I thought of. There’s also this one: https://directory.remake.world/
I’m sorry I thought I replied to my original comment! Still learning Reddit.
It depends on the type of product and what kinds of regulations or protections are currently in place for the product, way of manufacturing, or materials used. Usually there is not "one place" to check everything/anything. It will take some legwork as a consumer.
Sometimes, even if a product has certain stamps of approval like the leaping bunny for anti-animal cruelty in cosmetics, they might still use child labor to mine the mica pigments that bring color to makeup, or the metal for packaging, or have poor working conditions for the people in their factories.
To help make it easier you can find websites or groups like the good shopping guide that compile companies that ethically make products or ethically source materials/ingredients, rate them, fact check them, and cross reference. I found this site after a quick Google. They seem to be extremely comprehensive. Any decent group will be transparent about how they audit/collect data on the companies they have listed. The good shopping guide goes into deep detail about how they audit.
You may need to find multiple websites depending on what you want to research.
Specific to child labor, don't buy any chocolate sourced from Africa, only South America. Cocoa producers in West Africa widely use child labor for harvesting, and efforts to monitor this have failed.
Likewise, any clothing produced in Bangladesh runs the risk of being produced by children or in dangerous conditions. Sub-contracting is common there, and undermines any kind of supplier verification that major brands perform. The cheapest clothing, like Shein, is produced in awful conditions in China, but I think most Chinese manufacturers are doing better than their Bangladeshi counterparts. I don't know about other Asian countries.
I am on a reduce/reuse/recycle phase now so that could be something to consider.
Made in the US (or any other western country/Japan)
Organic cotton (GOTS)
Most manufacturing in the US is done through legalized slavery, it's made by people in prison paid 25 cents on the dollar, so if it says made in the US it was 9 times out of 10 made using legalized slavery. Also almost nothing is actually made in the US. The parts are manufactured in factories and sweatshops in south east Asia and sent to the USA to be assembled likely by people in prison or by job training programs for disabled people (that are exploitive and pay under minimum wage). Loads and loads of made in the US brands use this loophole so they can plaster made in the US their goods.
The marketing strategy, "made in the US", was concocted some in the mid 90s in an effort to quell the public anger towards the use of sweat shop labor. The made in the US tag was there to ensure the consumer that these are high quality good, not made in inhumane conditions and people bought and buy that lie hook line and sinker.
So looking for stuff made in the US doesn't really tell you much.
The slogan and marketing campaign were and are meant to
Your point is valid but ‘most’ is an enormous exaggeration.
I buy a lot of stuff made in Europe, like tops, jeans, socks, notebooks etc. The made in US brands I've bought from (No Mes, TiSurvival, Hanks, DecentExposures, Ashland) don't use any prison labour.
This is very far from "most" companies in the US lol
A non comprehensive list of the companies that fall under a regulatory body and are known to use prison labor.
IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores
While a small percentage of prison labor lies within one specific federally-regulated program, the vast majority exists in state, federal, and private prisons that have no centralized regulatory body. Prison labor is pervasive in the United States penal system, but the extent to which that labor is used to supply American corporations with goods and services is shrouded in secrecy.
Except most of the companies you listed aren't ones that tout around "Made In The USA."
Go to a shopping center and look around for products that proudly display a Made In The USA tag on their packaging. You'll find that most of them are products from smaller businesses that focus on a select range of products, not giant megacorporations like Microsoft. They're generally more expensive, higher quality, and better designed.
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Can be, but if I buy something 'made in China' I'm sure some kid has been toiling away on it. What you're saying just feels like an excuse to keep on buying that crap.
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Oh yes it is. It's the same old 'But if we don't buy it, those kids (making clothes in Myanmar) will starve!'.
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Still better than buying something made in China.
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Bruh? Ever heard about the Uyghur? I don't buy meat from the US. I find it hard to believe a kid would work on artisan products.
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I’d check out the chrome extension Cluey! They rate brands across metrics such as sustainability, treatment of workers, political donations, etc.
If chrome extensions are not your thing, their email newsletter has great content for conscious consumers like us.
companies that have ethical supply chains, let you know.
Those who don't, don't talk about.
E.G. Look at Patagonia, fjallraven or Origin USA. The first two talk about ethical sourcing, and Origin goes into detail to source every thing from the USA (which you would hope means ethically, or at least more ethical than a lot of parts of this world).
Ask the company if they don't tell you already. Varusteleka are very open about where things are made and where things are from.
Happy to see this comment here. I buy stuff from Varusteleka occasionally. I like their reports touring their manufacturers. Thus, I trust them too.
They’re the exception rather than the rule. When I email asking about where items are manufactured I have gotten replies as vague as “in Asia” to a meandering list of pan-Asian countries.
They are the exception.
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There’s no good way of knowing, as you would have to follow the trail of where a manufacturer sources its materials and so on down the chain (despite any environmental pledges). It’s a big plus if the manufacturing centers are visible to the public via tour or videos. And the reviews of workers are positive. I think a general rule of thumb is to buy less things, from electronics to clothes to soil.
For clothing there’s a good site called goodonyou.com
The simplest way is to see if the product is third party certified Fair Trade or union made.
Some stores will have already done the research for what they sell. You can check in certain eco-boutiques and food-coops, for example.
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It’s more difficult than you think. Basically unless you’re a Warren Buffet you’ll have very little insider knowledge about individual companies you want to invest in. It’s why the normal people are told to just invest in index funds.
I prefer to buy direct, most of the time. Especially if it’s a vertically integrated company, or one that lists their supply chain
This is easy. None.
If they have more than 50 employees, they are have probably had to make more than one moral sacrifice along the way. You will read that we do this or that, but the bottom line is well, the bottom line. Even if you try, you can't determine how much your supply chain is doing. And if you have a supply chain, well that's carbon footprint for sourcing and for distribution.
You can compare and say this one is better than that one, but morally and sustainably? Neh.
Do your own research and judge for yourself. Morals are relative, so what someone calls "ethical" might not be ethical to you.
Read the packaging. There is not a single company that will sell a product without advertising on the packaging their good for the environment & good for humanity certifications. I work in a TP Factory that makes products for other companies. Rainforest certification & more are on the back of the packaging. You may have to look up online what some of them are or what they mean, but I promise you, they are there.
Most publicly traded companies publish a Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR), which contains information on their practices, their supply chain, and their materiality factors. You can find this information on their website. Sustainability leaders may also publish an Integrated Sustainability & Financial Report. These types of reports tend to contain much more highly scrutinized information due to the financial implications it may hold for the publishing company. This is all free, and publicly disclosed information.
I think the idea is to buy fewer, simpler things. It's impossible to track down the origin of everything, and the cheaper and shittier they are the more likely they are to be made by slaves etc.
It also stands to reason that nice quality stuff is less likely to be made with these methods. It's far from 100%, but craftsmanship is usually associated with decent materials and labor
No consumption can be fully ethical
A company is an organization of people, often spread across multiple continents, cultures, and legal frameworks. Some of what we consider unethical in the West is seen as necessary in other parts of the world. Even if a company outlines its supply chain and manufactures its product in countries with relatively decent labor laws, there's still going to be the issue of vendors or distribution or some other thing that would trip up an absolutist. Some are obviously better than others, and there are websites that track this information, but at the end of the day, idealists are going to taste reality. Labeling it as "ethical" or "unethical" is ultimately oversimplifying.
A much better way to evaluate consumer choices is by whether or not it effectively meets your needs. The hypothetical ideal is one where you buy no more or less than what's necessary, and that comes down to being thoughtful about what your wants and needs are and not compromising for temporary fixes. Taking this seriously will lead you to more satisfying purchases and probably save you money.
I hate anything that's cheap and clearly not built to last, or built in such a way that it has very limited use cases. A lot of consumer waste is generated by people buying things for the sake of "saving money," only to have to later re-buy the same product because it breaks or isn't actually what they want. Evaluate your options thoroughly and buy what you really want, that way you don't have to think about it again and come crawling back to the IKEA catalog or whatever. Valuing quality over quantity is sustainable and it's a good sign if a company seems to value that as well.
Consumerism has a bad connotation because of the excess in which people participate. And trying to figure out what goes on inside a company and then making a highly subjective judgment based solely on that is still guesswork at best. The best way to avoid contributing to that excess is simply to buy with little intent of buying the same thing again.
You stop deregulating the market
Looking uo B-corp (Benefit Corporations) is a good place to start I think
Pretty simple. If they come from a publically traded company, you can pretty much guarantee their products are destroying the planet.
Try to buy things produced locally (assuming you live in a country with good workers rights). Buy from cooperatives if possible.
Whose morals are you using to judge companies?l
Easy. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism.
You can't. We have no idea what is moral or sustainable to you. And what is your definition of proof.
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Rent free.
A) look for the cheapest price, because higher price mean more economic activity, especially if the higher price is because the company is involved in political lobbying to make everything more expensive on behalf of the global warming agenda.
B) look for no plastic and other toxic chemicals. The global warming people want to replace everything with petrochemicals.
BaggageCat t1_ix8ama3 wrote
This is a really tricky question. Most companies have multiple supply sources, and even if the garment is made in-house, in a controlled environment, you may not be able to source where the components that went into the objects were acquired or how they were made. For example, even if the shirt you bought was made by a local artisan, you don’t know if the fabric they sourced was from a sustainable source or if it was made where there’s no workers rights for textile production. And often time small biz artisans are working for less than minimum wage, but your purchase help them grow towards a real income. So you’ve got to choose your battles. Big box shops will often contract labor to a particular factory, but that factory might sub-contract to other factories without the original businesses knowledge. This is particularly the case when a company sends production to another country but doesn’t have a local representative to check on the production process. It’s much more complex and often almost impossible to know, in most cases. We just have to do the best we can, and there’s some sites that have good information out there (though they still won’t know everything). Alternately, you can buy second hand, which often is of better quality than most goods manufactured today.