Spend wise - Guardian to Purse; waste less - Angel to Earth. Poll: protecting the planet given priority over economy growth

"Do well by doing good." - Ben Franklin
"Spend wise - Guardian to Purse;
waste less - Angel to Earth." - LuCxeed

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The power of the purse is the most democratic power of all. Global warming & great recession sees the rise of ethical consumerism.

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," Franklin Roosevelt said in 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression. "We know now that it is bad economics." We learned this all over again after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the shame of subprime mortgages and the brazen Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff. America has always been a great laboratory of social innovation, from Ben Franklin's creation of the volunteer fire department and the lending library to the rise of online collectives like Wikipedia. We are again entering a period of social change not just through voting or volunteering but also through commerce: by what we buy. According to a new TIME poll, more than 6 in 10 Americans have bought organic products since January. Lots of us have bought an energy-efficient lightbulb too. And it's not just the nature of the product but also its provenance that's prompting us to buy. Of the 1,003 adults we polled this summer, 82% said they have consciously supported local or neighborhood businesses this year. Nearly 40% said they purchased a product in 2009 because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it. That's evidence of a changing mind-set, a new kind of social contract among consumers, business and government. Still, not everyone embraces the idea of corporate social responsibilities (CSR).

With global warming on the minds of many consumers, lots of companies are racing to "outgreen" one another, a competition that is good for their bottom lines as well as the environment's. The most progressive companies are talking about a triple bottom line — profit, planet and people — that focuses on how to run a business while trying to improve environmental and worker conditions.

The power of the purse is the most democratic power of all. Nearly half of Americans in our poll said protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth — and this comes in the midst of a recession and historic unemployment. Companies also began to realize that just as some consumers boycotted products they considered unethical, others would purchase products in part because their manufacturers were responsible. Gap developed sourcing guidelines for its suppliers, and has been publishing information about the factories it uses and those it has stopped doing business with. Last year HP followed suit, becoming one of the first computer manufacturers to apply similar transparency to its global supply chain.

None of this would have happened without consumer demand. The power of the purse is the most democratic power of all.

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Original Source: Time