To ask how important it is to buy things made in your own country?

[FortunesFave]

To you I mean.

Do you ever choose something over another item because it says it was "Made in England" or wherever you live?

If so, what are your reasons?

@DdraigGoch

If an item has been produced in the UK then I can trust that people were probably not exploited to produce it, that waste was disposed of responsibly and that the energy to produce it was lower carbon than many places.

I also try to keep food miles as low as possible though I have no choice with bananas and oranges. That generally means seasonal produce.

I like to buy locally grown food as much as possible, but I recognise that the emissions associated with transport are not the only ones involved. If I buy out-of-season produce, then e.g. green beans grown in a north-European greenhouse may not be as much of an improvement on the same vegetable flown in from Kenya as some people might think. Growing bananas in a British greenhouse (if anyone attempted it) would almost certainly produce more emissions than growing them in the Caribbean and bringing them over on a boat.

As others have said, the situation with transportation emissions is harder to get a grip on with manufactured goods. For example, I'm currently looking at buying a kitchen. One made in the UK seems better in terms of transportation emissions than one made in China, but if the British manufacturer uses melamine-faced chipboard which was made in China then they have probably transported MORE material around the world, not less. The British-made kitchen will have required all the material used in the kitchen units PLUS whatever is wasted in the factory to be shipped over, instead of just the material in the finished product.

The first paragraph of the post I've quoted makes really good points about why British manufacture may be preferable for other reasons though, thank you!

Would you also boycott food that says it's made in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, or does your irrational hatred only extend to Scottish produce?

That's not petty, it's idiotic.