Ethical Grocery Shopping

Sometimes it can be mystifying trying to make the right choices when grocery shopping. I find myself staring at a wall of biscuits, or oil, or toothpaste, try to weigh up the issues. Buy local? How much packaging does each product have? Has the company that produces it done anything particularly odious? Is the company owned by another umbrella company (probably)? How far can I stretch my budget to make a more ethical choice?

Ethical shopping guides can be a useful shorthand to help you with these choices. The Ethical Consumer Guide, for example, offers not only a printed guide but also an iPhone app, supermarket tours (in Melbourne), and some principles to guide your choices.

The Good Grocery Guide is also useful, and is Perth-based. As well as providing an ethical product list, it also offers more general ethical shopping tips.

Shopping guides have their limits. As the Ethical Consumer Guide points out, in many cases it's best to think carefully about whether you really need to buy the product at all: "About 80% of all saleable products end up as waste, on average, within just 6 months."

Lifecycles Workshop #1: Food

This year, the Bluestocking Institute's work will focus on the lifecycles of three different products: food, clothing, and electronics. In each workshop, speakers will give brief ideas on how to translate concerns into action. Participants will also be invited to take part in informal discussion.

The 'Food' workshop will include speakers (TBA) on a range of topics, including ethical grocery shopping, key food policy issues, and fair trade. Snacks will be provided.

Please RSVP on the event's Facebook page.

Cost: $5 waged/ gold coin donation unwaged.

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Image courtesy of Flickr user Darwin Bell.

Fair Trade Fortnight

We’ll be adding new content to the Bluestocking Institute website throughout Fair Trade Fortnight from 1-16 May 2010. Fair trade ensures that farmers and workers in the developing world are paid fair prices for their goods and labour. We’ll be profiling fair trade NGOs and producers, promoting World Fair Trade Day events, and discussing the challenges of certifying and labeling fair trade products. New and existing members will also be eligible to win fair trade products.

You can support fair trade producers this weekend by choosing fair trade chocolates for Easter. For a list of fair trade chocolatiers click here, Fair Trade Easter or Global Exchange.

Sourcemap: open supply chains

A friend recently linked to Sourcemap, an open-source tool for mapping ecological footprints, travel, and the supply chains of different products. The site's creators write: "We built Sourcemap so that everyone can access the information needed to make sustainable choices and share them with the world."

I haven't had a chance to play around with the site yet: I'm sure it's worth spending a few hours there browsing through the maps that other people have uploaded and creating your own. If you use the site, why not leave a comment telling us about it?

What did we do in 2009?

The Bluestocking Institute's Annual Report for 2009 is now available for download here

2009 was a big year for the Bluestocking Institute. During the previous year, a group of us came up with the idea for the Bluestocking Institute. We had been meeting informally for several years to discuss international politics, human rights and global poverty. Our discussions drew upon academic literature, media reports and work being done by nongovernmental organisations and activists to address global problems on a local level. Realising that these types of discussions could motivate more people to get involved and take action towards issues they care about, we decided to open our discussions to the wider community.

In order to begin this process, the founders decided to set up a Management Committee to oversee the Institute’s activities and become an incorporated association. We did so on 31 March 2009. In the year that followed, the Bluestocking Institute hosted several public events and launched its website. The website acted as an informational tool to raise awareness about the Institute and publicise its events. The website continues to grow and has been supplemented by a blog, and together these provide the public with reading recommendations, links to articles, and notifications of upcoming events. In 2009, blog posts also contained commentary on food and poverty, fair trade, ethical consumerism and nonprofit careers.

In 2009, we also began to develop relationships with several community groups in WA, including the Edmund Rice Institute for Social Justice. In 2010 we hope to continue to build relationships with local community groups by hosting collaborative events and sharing resources and expertise. This year the Bluestocking Institute will expand its work and launch the Lifecycles project. This project will educate the public about ethical consumerism, challenging people to think about where things come from and how they are made. The Lifecycles project will also give consumers practical tools to make informed choices in their daily lives. We look forward to an exciting year ahead.

Upcoming Events: RawFest, Youth Week RRFM, Fossil Fools Day

There are a few events coming up that are relevant to Bluestocking's Lifecycles theme, exploring different approaches to what we consume and how we consume it.

RawFest 2010
The first of these is RawFest, which runs from 6pm to late this Saturday at City Farm.

Many Raw Food proponents focus on the health benefits of eating unprocessed and uncooked foods, and incorporating more Raw Food into your diet can also help to decrease the burden our food choices place on the planet and on your wallet. Raw foods often travel less before they get to our plates, take less energy to produce, and cost less.

RawFest will be a great chance to learn more about the Raw Food movement, and there'll also be drumming and dance performances by Akwaaba.

Fossil Fools Day
This Fossil Fools Day, the Safe Climate Coalition is focusing on Barnett's plan to build new coal-fired power stations:

National Youth Week Really Really Free Market
The next Really Really Free Market will be held from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 17th April at Hyde Park.

If you're interested in helping out or want to chat about running a workshop, you can phone Emma on 0403 952 365, or email perth.rrfm@gmail.com

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All you have to do is click on Membership. Join now!