Which shops/brands do you boycott and why?

[nappyaddict]

I want to do my moral bit but it seems that a lot of things are being boycotted of late and you can't boycott everyone!!

People I know boycott Nestle, Bodyshop, Maybelline, Garneir, L'oreal etc. The full list is here

Then I know other people boycotting Google, Arcadia, Boots, Barclays, Vodafone, Starbucks and Amazon for tax avoidance.

Then there's the brands that aren't signed up to the ETI. Plus wooden items, cotton items, chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar, fruit and veg that aren't Fairtrade.

[NaturalBaby]

Nestle. Cheap clothes in general.
I love Boots so am not happy about the tax issue - I get a lot of products 'free' with their points. I also find it very difficult to manage without Amazon.
My family thinks I'm nuts for only buying fairtrade, Dh gets no choice though as I do the shopping!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Since dp lost his job, I must admit I'm much less fussy.

However, I will never buy anything from Origins again, after dreadful customer service (ie non-existent).

[Danann]

I try to buy fairtrade and organic products as much as possible but money is very tight so for things we actually need that doesn't always work out. However I never buy from any of the following, as there are affordable alternatives/I can go without the stuff they sell.

Nestle, I've been boycotting them since I was 12.

KFC (animal cruelty)

Enterprise Inns (because of this. )

Starbucks (because of the way they treat coffee farmers rather than tax)

Coca Cola (treatment of workers, originally because of the workers killed in Colombia in 2003)

Tate and Lyle (lands rights abuses in Cambodia)

Bottled water

I also don't buy any make up/shampoo etc unless I know they are from a company which doesn't test on animals.

Most of them are pretty easy to stick to, apart from KFC which is a real challenge some days as I do love their food. The DC do get some of those things but never from me, Nanny delights in buying them KFC, a can of coke and a nestle chocolate whenever she takes them out, so much so DD has asked if I can tell her I'm boycotting the toyshop next

[AgentProvocateur]

I will never buy from tmobile because of crap customer service, and I recently cancelled ouf company contract - 30 phones - with them, which gave me great pleasure.

I don't shop at tesco because of the Shirley porter debacle, and I avoid Israeli goods where possible.

[nappyaddict]

Apparently people are also boycotting Apple, Walmart (Asda), Tesco, Sainsbury's, Mars, Kellog's, Coca Cola, KFC, Burger King, Subway, McDonald's, Microsoft, EE, Sky, Virgin, BT, Samsung, Acer, Panasonic, Procter&Gamble, Lloyds, Visa, Ebay, Adidas, BMW, BP, Texaco, Shell, NPower, EDF, Electric, Walker's, Cadbury, Pepsico (brands include Quaker, Tropicana and Gatorade) and Facebook for tax avoidance. I am sure there are many others that could be added to the list.

The thing is with phones, computers and tablets you're a bit stuck as your only options are Android (owned by Google), Microsoft and Apple. And phone/tv packages are limited to Sky/Virgin/BT.

NaturalBaby what things do you buy that you only buy fairtrade? I only buy fairtrade coffee, chocolate, General tea, sugar and bananas.

Danann What about McDonald's and Burger King? Do they have good track records with regards to being animal friendly? Presumably you also only eat free range eggs/meat? I buy free range poultry but find free range pork difficult to find in a lot of shops. And does free range lamb and beef exist cos I have never seen that.

Likewise do you know if Costa treat their farmers well and do Pepsi treat their workers well?

Why bottled water?

[nappyaddict]

That should say General Electric not General tea! I must have accidentally dragged a word to another paragraph.

Associated British Foods is another tax avoider. They own Silver Spoon, Primark and Ryvita.

[Sativa]

Procter and Gamble for animal testing

[IrisWildthyme]

I only boycott Nestle myself. I semi-boycott bodyshop as I swapped from getting all my toiletries there to getting everything from co-op's BUAV-approved stuff when they got bought out by L'Oreal, but I do't feel as strongly as I do about Nestle. I feel I ought to boycott some of the others you mention but I don't have the time or energy to be a completely ethical consumer so that's as far as I go (and amazon prime makes christmas shopping SO much easier)

If you want to expend the list of potentially-boycottable businesses: My grandmother has boycotted Tesco since the eighties due to the activities of Dame Shirley Porter, the heir of the founder. (e.g. Westminster Cemeteries Scandal, Homes for Votes Scandal etc)

[Danann]

Don't know about McDonalds or Burger King, I don't eat either so have never looked into it. Yes I only buy free range eggs and poultry, I can't eat Pork so have never looked for it. You can get free range lamb and beef if you order it online but I'm yet to see it in a supermarket, I tend to get meat from a local farm shop where I at least know the profits are going to a local farmer who I know looks after his animals well. I also don't eat veal (because the calves are kept in cramped conditions deliberately to limit movement as it makes the meat more tender.)

Costa are very good, they are Rainforest Alliance Certified which means they are very careful to buy from sustainable farms and look after the farmers, I don't know about Pepsi, I know there was a pro-life boycott a couple of years ago but I've never heard anything about them treating workers badly.

Bottled water because a) 70% of bottled water is owned by Nestlé
b) bottled water companies fought to downgrade water from a universal right to a need meaning they no longer have to consider how much of the worlds water they are bottling
c) a large proportion of bottled water is pumped from developing countries, lowering the water table meaning people are literally dying of thirst and contaminated water so we can buy bottled water when there's already enough water available without stealing theirs.
and d) the environmental implications of buying plastic bottles each time we want a drink rather than just refilling a sports bottle from the tap.

[Skrifa]

Nestlé.

[ReticulatingSplines]

Just Nestle here too. Pissed off at android's association with Nestle so thinking of getting a different kind of phone when my contract is up.

[nappyaddict]

Oooh I did not know Android was associated with Nestle. How?

[nappyaddict]

Dannan With regard to c) does that apply to bottled soda water and tonic water too?

[mypavlova]

Martha Stewart, Oprah and Gwyneth because they are so annoying. I used to boycott Walmart but it went on so long I forgot why.

[whereisshe]

I don't because I find it impossible to maintain a consistent moral position and actually eat / run my life. I avoid many large companies anyway because of how we eat (I'm allergic to preservatives so very little processed food) and the products I prefer for house and personal use (eco, not quasi-eco).

[MrsHowardRoark]

As an aside, most beef and lamb is 'free-range' in this country because it's cheaper and easier to rear it that way. That's why you don't see specific mention of it.

Waitrose do outdoor reared pork.

[Chottie]

Nestle for baby milk stuff going back years
My local optician for the most awful service
Boots pharmacist -for awful service regarding DGS prescription.

All fast food outlets.

[mumtosome61]

I rarely set foot in Starbucks. It's partly ethical reasons and partly because I refuse to pay the prices knowing what happens and where it comes from.

I'm really not an Apple fan either.

[imip]

Nestle, 'cheap' clothing such as h&m, Zara, primary and Cos. I know I am not getting right on the clothes front. When I spend a lot on clothes, I have nodoubtat that could be made under appalling labour conditions, but I cannot research every piece of clothing I buy, it's a general rule....

Organic or fair trade meat. I am very iffy on meat and dairy. It's generally an ethical thing, but in my home country I cannot donate blood because I have lived in the uk to long and the been exposed to meat - mad cow disease issue. Fair trade everything.

Environmental cleaning products. For animal testing and environmental reasons. Animal testing is a lot harder as companies like loreal now own the body shop etc. hard to keep up to date with it all. I remember for a while companies like Nivea etc had animal testing moratoriums and were ok to buy from. It was a mine field. Particularly hard to buy things like deodorant and shaving cream.

I always feel better buying from coop, waitrose and marks. Again, not fool proof at all. I do occasionally shop at sainsburys (cheapest organic meat), but avoid the others like the plague. That's because of not providing a fair deal to their supplies eg milk etc. squeezing the supplies, making prices soo cheap and then lots of food waste at the end off the day. I know this isn't perfect...

Finally, I don't have such an issue with amazon etc over the tax issues. Why? Well they are acting within the law. I suppose I see their actions as less victimless than a family being forced to sell their child into bonded labour to get the money to survive.

I'm sure I slip up, but I've shopped in this manner for nearly 25 years. My friends find it funny that I don't shop on h&m, primark etc, but it saddens me that so many people aren't concerned abut sweat shops, exploitation etc. people often come back with "well at least they have jobs". I think if the world stopped buying primark and fashion wasnt so disposable, primark would improve labour standards. Shame a building collapse in Bangladesh didnt make more people sit up and take notice.

[ReticulatingSplines]

Sorry, just noticed this.

Android/nestle association: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938

[SirChenjin]

I try not to buy Nestle but sometimes lapse

I will not buy anything with FCUK on it simply because of its puerility

A well known Indian takeway/restaurant chain up here in Scotland because they are crooks.

[RavenVonChaos]

Sky, news international. Anything to do with Rupert Murdoch

[HermioneWeasley]

In terms of boycotts, only Nestle, News international (the times and Sky - probably am using lots I don't know about) and Duchy Originals because of the tax avoidance , and I think Prince Charles is a cunt.

Buy fair trade tea and coffee

Buy free range meat and eggs

[CardiffUniversityNetballTeam]

What do Starbucks do to coffee farmers? I understood they had a good track record in terms of ethical purchasing.

[Danann]

I don't think it is the same for soda water or tonic water, I'm not 100% sure on that though.

Cardiff Starbucks made a big deal of selling fair-trade coffee when they first started selling it and made people believe that they were an ethical company, actually only 1.6% of their coffee was fairtrade, the other 98.4% was from regular, badly paid coffee farmers, it was some very clever marketing as people see an advert saying they use fairtrade but never ask if that's all they use.