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Shopping for the Perfect, Green, Animal-Friendly, Union-Made, Recycled, Low-Energy, Humane, Affordable – and Chic – Holiday Gift

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of several books including Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love and The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism. Follow Fran Hawthorne on Twitter.

Buy Ethical Chic or any other Beacon Press title by December 31, 2012 and get 20% off, free shipping and Beacon will donate 15% of your order to help schools affected by Hurricane Sandy. Use code GIFT20--more info here.

A partridge in a pear tree? But the Nahan’s Partridge of Africa is endangered, as are the Sichuan Partridge of China and the grey partridge of Britain. And why would you uproot a pear tree from its native habitat?

Chocolate Hannukah gelt? Not if that chocolate is from Cote d’Ivoire – the source of half the world’s chocolate – where young girls are forced to undergo genital mutilation.

On the other hand, coal in the Christmas stocking isn’t a great idea, either. Was the coal strip-mined by blasting the top off a mountain in Appalachia? Were any mine workers killed underground trying to dig it out?

Sigh. If you want to be an ethical gift-giver, it sometimes seems as if the only safe present is a tube of Tom’s of Maine peppermint toothpaste.

(Oops: Tom’s of Maine was bought by Colgate-Palmolive, so you would actually be giving your money to a big corporation that uses weird ingredients like PVM/MA copolymer and propylene glycol.)

Then factor in size, price, and whether the recipient would actually like the thing, and by any definition, it’s impossible to find the perfect gift.

But ‘tis the season. You have to try.

You can certainly read labels, consult “do not buy” lists, and seek out companies that fit your ethical standards. In fact, we at Beacon have compiled a comprehensive list of the major consumer, environmental, labor, animal-welfare, anti-sweatshop, and other “ethical” rankings:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/97558756/Consumer-resources-list-compiled-by-Fran-Hawthorne

If that seems too arduous, maybe you could look at gift-giving from a different direction. Instead of analyzing the labels, analyze the process. Here are some ideas:

Some companies are actually better than their reputation. Nike, for instance, has dramatically improved its monitoring of overseas suppliers and is considered a leader in ethical leather sourcing in the shoe industry. Nevertheless, it still has such a terrible image, stemming from its sweatshop horrors of the 1990s, that friends and relatives might be furious if you gave them a pair of Air Jordans. So for now, buy the shoes for yourself, and tell people why you did.

Other companies are worse than fans realize. Someone on your gift list might love a bag of Starbucks Via or a mermaid-logo mug, but you know that Starbucks tried to cheat the poor coffee farmers of Ethiopia, wrecks the environment by selling bottled water, and was cited by the National Labor Relations Board for illegal harassment of union organizers. Don’t buy that mug.

If a company takes some actions that really bother you, but overall it seems to be ethically operated, then go ahead and purchase its merchandise. But at the same time, make a donation to a cause that will help counteract the company’s misdeeds, and include the donation card with the gift. For instance: a contribution to PETA along with a set of leather Timberland boots, or a contribution to NOW with an American Apparel shirt.

Give alternative gifts. For the person who lives on Starbucks lattes, try a gift certificate to a local independent café. The Trader Joe’s addict? Some banana bread from the farmers’ market. Of course, the recipients may hate your gift; after all, there’s a reason they go to Starbucks five times a day. But they can always re-gift it.

In the end, there’s some truth to the cliché that it’s the thought that counts.

Generosity and friendship are never unethical.

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Why American Apparel is Still Ethical Even if the CEO Disappoints

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of several books including Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love and The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism.

Dov Charney has his good points. Really.

Sure, employees have filed at least 10 lawsuits against the founder and chief executive of sexy-clothing-maker American Apparel, alleging sexual harassment, bullying, violence, and illegal use of corporate money. His firm went bankrupt once and has skirted the financial edge two more times.

The newest lawsuit—brought by the male manager of an American Apparel outlet in uber-cool Malibu, California—claims, among other things, that Charney spewed obscenities at him for poor sales, called him “a fag” and “a f***ing Jew,” tried to squeeze and choke him, and then tried to rub dirt in his face.

Actually, this is an improvement over some of the earlier legal actions, in which Charney was accused of grabbing his penis in front of one female worker and using company funds to buy sex videos for himself. At least this time, he apparently is concerned about store sales.

Yet, the case against Charney is not that simple.

The same bravado and willingness to buck conventional wisdom that allegedly produce the sexual filth, also propel Charney to open his big mouth for unpopular causes of social justice.

While other U.S. companies hire undocumented foreign-born workers mainly to cheat them out of wages and overtime, knowing that they don’t dare complain, Charney champions their rights. He marches in Los Angeles’s biggest Latino parade, donates money to immigrant rights’ groups, ran ads supporting citizenship, and designed two special lines of T-shirts as fund-raisers.

While other U.S. clothing-makers ship their production out to sweatshops in places like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Honduras, and China, seeking the lowest wages possible, regardless of safety or health, Charney makes everything in the U.S. At American Apparel’s airy, light-filled main factory, workers can get subsidized health care, subsidized meals, free loaner bikes, free massages, free English lessons, discount bus passes, and free international calls back home (to all those countries they may have illegally come from). 

Charney also vigorously opposed California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage.

In short, if you’re concerned about corporate ethics, those two sides of Dov Charney can drive you crazy. Hate him or love him?

But there is a simple solution: Hate the man, love the company.

While Charney may be the drum major of the parade, the qualities that make American Apparel an ethical business should be pretty well entrenched throughout that factory by now. After 15 years, it would be hard to tear out the sunny windows or yank away the health care and English lessons. Company officials claim their  “vertically integrated” manufacturing platform has proved that making clothing in America is cost-effective.

Thus, the good parts should keep running even if Charney disappeared.

By the same token, the harassment and abuse lawsuits are only against Charney, personally, No other American Apparel executive has been accused of talking and acting dirty. Get rid of Charney, and the harassment and bullying should stop.

Charney probably owns too much of the company to be fired outright, and anyway, it’s often his creative vision behind the popular designs.

Instead, American Apparel should keep him locked up in a tower with lots of porn videos, Hungry Man frozen dinners, consenting (and over 18) young women—and a laptop with a good graphics program. Every now and then, a few upper-tier managers could come by to talk about plans for new hoodies or dresses. But never, ever, ever let Dov Charney out. 

T-Shirts image from Bigstock.

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Double standard

Put Away Your Wallet: Why You Shouldn't Buy the iPhone 5

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love, The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism, and books on health care and investing.

Another new iPhone. Could you try to yawn?

Could you actually not buy it?

Or at least, before you pull out your wallet, think about the forced student labor, the warlords who benefit from mineral smuggling, the children exposed to toxic waste from old phones, and the pile of useless accessories you'll throw out.

With its constant pitching of the newest cool thing to replace its previous newest cool thing, Apple has always been one of the worst violators of the environmentalist credo “reduce, reuse, recycle.” It barely gives customers a chance to use its toys, let alone reuse, before making the toy obsolete and unfashionable.

But with the iPhone 5, Apple has really outdone itself.

For instance, customers have recently become aware that iPhones and other Apple gizmos are made in crowded and unsafe Chinese factories where people toil 15 hours a day for barely $50 a month. That’s bad enough. Then, just a week before the iPhone 5 went on sale, it was revealed that the factories had dragooned students onto the assembly lines in a rush to get the phones made on time, threatening to kick them out of school if they demurred.

Nor has anything been done to ameliorate the environmental problems. As with any product, making an iPhone uses up resources for the components, ingredients, packaging, and marketing, and also uses fuel and creates carbon emissions in the manufacturing and shipping processes. Again, iPhones are worse than the average, because their components include dangerous metals and ores like coltan, which is found only in endangered gorilla habitats or in African war zones where the profits get siphoned by warlords.

Moreover, when you throw out your old iPhone 4—even if you think you’re recycling it—most likely it will end up in a dump where little kids will poke  through dangerous metals with their bare hands, breathing in toxic fumes, to scavenge a few pennies’ worth of metal they can sell.

And with the iPhone 5, Apple has added to its garbage pileup and waste by redesigning the connector on the phone’s base precisely so that most of your old charging cords, docks, iPhone-compatible clock radios, and other add-ons will no longer fit. Into the garbage go all that rubber, metal, and plastic. Out of your wallet comes $30 for a special Apple adapter plus money to replace the accessories that still won’t work on the adapter.

Okay then, here’s an idea: Your iPhone 4S is less than a year old. How about sticking with it just one more year—until the iPhone 6 comes out?

Photo of iPhone from Bigstock.

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A Year After the Departure of Steve Jobs, Does Apple “Think Different?”

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love, The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism, and books on health care and investing.

Because Apple fans love their iProducts so ardently, they have often attributed to Steve Jobs and Apple almost every positive quality they want to see in a CEO and a company, whether deserved or not. Thus, they have assumed that Apple reduces its energy use, recycles its electronic waste, treats its workers well, and generally is a socially responsible corporation.

Toward the end of Jobs’ reign, fans gradually and grudgingly began to realize that their heroes didn’t deserve all those haloes.

Now, ironically, Jobs’ successor, Timothy Cook, may turn out to be the real hero of the myth.

This week marks one year since Jobs stepped down as CEO. He would die just six weeks later. During the transition to the Cook era, customers and investors have, understandably, focused on the products and stock price.

But quietly, Cook has made some important changes in the area of corporate social responsibility.

While he was still the heir-apparent, Cook visited the major Chinese factory that manufactures iPhones, iPads, and other devices, after a series of suicides there by workers protesting the long hours and low pay.  Jobs never bothered to check in person.  Early this year, Cook brought in an outside monitor to follow up on the complaints and again inspected the site himself. 

Even more amazing, Cook publicly identified 156 Apple subcontractors and published the monitor’s report. This, from the company that never talks to the press?

True, Cook has continued the tradition of shunning reporters. However, he showed up at a big meeting to speak with financial analysts—which Jobs rarely did—and has schmoozed with members of Congress.

Such outreach is important, because social responsibility is simply impossible without open communication. Transparency enables customers, neighbors, suppliers, employees, investors, and social activists to see exactly what the company is doing and, in turn, push the company on their own goals.

And Apple employees have started to relax. It’s no longer the case—as Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon famously wrote in their 2005 book iCon—that “You didn’t want to encounter him [Jobs] in a hallway, because he might not like an answer you gave... And you sure as hell didn’t want to get trapped on an elevator with him, because by the time the doors opened, you might not have a job.”

The new CEO is—well—a normal person, not a demigod. He is private but not obsessive and mercurial.

Of course these changes haven’t transformed Apple into the ideal of a socially responsible company. There are still serious problems in the factories in China and far too much wasted packaging and planned obsolescence for the products.

Nor does the praise of Cook diminish Jobs’ incredible talents and achievements. Probably only an obsessive and mercurial creative genius could have had the vision and persistence to transform the floundering concept of a portable music player into the iPod or to revive a cartoon shop called Pixar—to name just two of Jobs’ successes. 

Cook may never invent or inspire the invention of a better product.

But he may well reinvent Apple as a better corporate citizen.

IPad photo from Bigstock.

Read Fran Hawthorne's post about Trader Joe's 

View a "Consumer Resources List" to find out how to shop your values

Listen to Fran Hawthorne on The Brian Lehrer Show 

Conservative Ethical Chic(ken)

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love, The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism, and books on health care and investing.

Liberals seem to get all the attention for investing and shopping according to their ethical values, perhaps because the Civil Rights movement began with a boycott of the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. And since then, the most famous consumer actions have tended to tilt leftward—against Dow Chemical for making napalm during the Vietnam War, or against Nike and now Apple for dreadful working conditions at overseas factories.

So it’s only fair that it’s finally the conservatives’ turn.

Dan Cathy, president and scion of the $4 billion chicken chain Chick-fil-A, has proudly publicized his traditional Baptist beliefs and, in particular, his opposition to same-sex marriage. As he told a radio station, “I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.' "

Accordingly, gay rights groups have called for a boycott, while Christian conservatives promised to eat more chicken than ever and declared a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Conservative politicians like the former presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are leading the charge.

Rare though it might seem to be, Chick-fil-A isn’t the first right-wing consumer cause. For instance, there are socially responsible investment vehicles from all sides of the values spectrum. Some religious-based funds avoid companies in the business of selling alcohol, tobacco, and military equipment—seemingly liberal causes—but others shun anything to do with abortion or birth control. The Republican state treasurer of Missouri launched a “terror-free fund” a few years back, to bam companies that have a financial relationship with countries on the federal government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Years ago, Pepsi was known as the “Republican” cola, and Coke was the “Democratic” alternative, because of the political campaigns to which each manufacturer supposedly donated.

As it happens, I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A. Until this controversy, I was only vaguely aware of the company, and there are no outlets near me. 

On the other hand, I also don’t live near any In-N-Out Burger sites—I’m in New York, and the chain is located only in the West—but my family makes a beeline whenever we are within 10 miles of an In-N-Out restaurant, because we love the high-quality beef and secret sauce. Never mind that this brand, too, could be considered a fundamentalist Christian company, because the late president, a born-again Christian, instituted a practice of referencing Biblical chapters and verses on its paper cups. (Who even looks at the bottom of the cups?)

It’s too soon to tell which side will win the current chicken war. As a liberal, of course I hope the pro-Chick-fil-A movement flounders. I am troubled by the intolerance—indeed, the avid and self-satisfied intolerance—of the chain’s owner. If I ever stumble across an outlet, I will stay away.

Read Fran Hawthorne's post about Trader Joe's 

View a "Consumer Resources List" to find out how to shop your values

Listen to Fran Hawthorne on The Brian Lehrer Show 

Yet in a weird way, I’m glad to see the concept of ethical shopping gaining favor among conservatives.

True, right-wing activism will probably lead to more union-busting or anti-gay bias in the short run, if consumers flock to companies that engage in those practices. Chick-fil-A would undoubtedly rake in less profit if people like Huckabee and Santorum weren’t making such a concerted effort to dine there.

However, in the longer run, this trend could mean a chance for dialogue. With both sides now talking the language of ethical consumption and activism, maybe we can change some minds or find common ground.

We all win when consumers realize that every dollar has a larger meaning.

 

Cow photo from Bigstock. 

Trader Joe's: Your Multinational "Neighborhood" Grocery Chain

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love, The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism and books on health care and investing.

New Trader Joe’s outlets have just opened in Lexington, KY, and West Seattle, and 18 more are scheduled soon across the U.S., from Medford, OR, to Sarasota, FL, to Albany, NY. That should certainly please fans like Jeff Pollard, 33, who lives near Albany and belongs to a group called “We Want Trader Joe’s in the Capital District” – the Capital District being the area around Albany, the capital of New York State.

Congratulations, Jeff. Enjoy the Formosa papaya and the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin-Flavored Basmati Rice.

Altogether, the new openings will mean approximately 400 Trader Joe’s stores in the U.S., which should make even more people happy (like Denice Rochelle in Seattle, who has blogged about that location). But this growth puts a real strain on the chain’s slogan: “Your neighborhood grocery store.”

Just whose neighborhood are they talking about?

The yuppie neighborhood near Manhattan’s “Silicon Square”? The middle-class family neighborhood in the Los Angeles exurb of Camarillo? The two neighborhoods in Atlanta?

Perhaps a surfer neighborhood in Hawaii? That would seem to be what the company wants shoppers to think, with all the surfboards, fake-bamboo, and garishly flowered shirts throughout the stores.  However, there actually aren’t any Hawaii outlets.

True, each TJ site serves its own neighborhood, sometimes altering the product mix to appeal to the local demographic. Food shopping tends to be a neighborhood activity; we rarely drive 30 miles for a carton of milk. But in that case, Trader Joe’s is no more of a “neighborhood grocery store” than is Kroger, Safeway, Whole Foods, or any other supermarket chain-– many of which are smaller than Trader Joe’s.

In fact, the most apt neighborhood might be Germany’s Ruhr Valley, headquarters of the multinational Aldi grocery chain that owns TJ's.

That’s right. What most Trader Joe’s devotees don’t realize is that all the cute Polynesian décor is actually part of a $70 billion, 4,000-store global chain owned by a super-secretive German nonagenarian ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s wealthiest people.

So what difference does this make? Maybe none. The papaya and chicken taste the same, the staff is just as friendly, and the prices are just as low.

Yet the hidden billionaire ownership and the phony neighborliness matter, because they are part of a bigger misleading image-– along with a smattering of exotic veggies and cage-free eggs-- that makes people feel as if they’re somehow supporting a nice little health food coop when they shop at Trader Joe’s.

The truth is that Trader Joe’s is almost the complete opposite of that feel-good image. 

As my new book Ethical Chic points out, it’s not merely the surfer-local image that’s false. For instance, only TJ-brand products are guaranteed to be free of trans fats, genetically modified organisms, artificial preservatives, and other yecchy stuff. The 20% of items that are not made specially for the chain can have any kind of ingredients, and that includes non-cage-free eggs from chickens kept in horrible battery cages. And think again about the pre-cooked, frozen Chicken Tikka Masala with Cumin-Flavored Basmati Rice. All the extra packaging? Ingredients shipped from India? That little meal violates some of the basic tenets of the organic and environmental movements, including “reduce packaging” and “buy local.”

I don’t want to be a grumpy, eat-your-tofu, enviro-extremist. Go to Trader Joe’s if you want, Jeff and Denice! It is fun to shop there (even if I think the hand-written signs are just too-too cute). All I’m saying is: Read the labels. Know what you’re buying-- and buy the product, not the image.

Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love

Consumers are told that when they put on an American Apparel t-shirt, leggings, jeans, gold bra, or other item, they look hot. Not only do they look good, but they can also feel good because they are helping US workers earn a decent wage (never mind that some of those female workers have accused their boss of sexual harassment). And when shoppers put on a pair of Timberlands, they feel fashionable and as green as the pine forest they might trek through-that is, until they're reminded that this green company is in the business of killing cows. But surely even the pickiest, most organic, most politically correct buyers can feel virtuous about purchasing a tube of Tom's toothpaste, right? After all, with its natural ingredients that have never been tested on animals, this company has a forty-year history of being run by a nice couple from Maine . . . well, ahem, until it was recently bought out by Colgate.

It's difficult to define what makes a company hip and also ethical, but some companies seem to have hit that magic bull's-eye. In this age of consumer activism, pinpoint marketing, and immediate information, consumers demand everything from the coffee, computer, or toothpaste they buy. They want an affordable, reliable product manufactured by a company that doesn't pollute, saves energy, treats its workers well, and doesn't hurt animals-oh, and that makes them feel cool when they use it. Companies would love to have that kind of reputation, and a handful seem to have achieved it. But do they deserve their haloes? Can a company make a profit doing so? And how can consumers avoid being tricked by phony marketing?

In Ethical Chic, award-winning author Fran Hawthorne uses her business-investigative skills to analyze six favorites: Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, American Apparel, Timberland, and Tom's of Maine. She attends a Macworld conference and walks on the factory floors of American Apparel. She visits the wooded headquarters of Timberland, speaks to consumers who drive thirty miles to get their pretzels and plantains from Trader Joe's, and confronts the founders of Tom's of Maine. More than a how-to guide for daily dilemmas and ethical business practices, Ethical Chic is a blinders-off and nuanced look at the mixed bag of values on sale at companies that project a seemingly progressive image.

Read Fran Hawthorne's posts at Beacon Broadside.

Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne (@hawthornewriter) has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, and other publications. She is the author of The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting,and Other Daily Dilemmas in an Age of Political Activism and three books on health care and investing, including Inside the FDA and Pension Dumping. She lives with her family in New York City.

Read the introduction to Ethical Chic at Scribd.

How to Tell if Your Favorite Companies Are Truly Progressive or Secretly Selling Out--interview at Alternet.

Listen to an interview with Fran Hawthorne on KUOW.