Anyone who has picked up a newspaper or watched the news on the television over the last few months can’t help but notice that the current buzz words are ‘green’ and ‘ethical.’ Politicians are firmly on the bandwagon and partly due to the government offering incentives for being carbon neutral, so are the big companies. Obviously some companies are more ethically minded than others. For example the Co-Operative Bank have always had an ethical policy.
Recently both Tesco and Marks&Spencer have announced so called ‘green’ policies. Tesco is to have carbon labelling on 70,000 product lines and M&S have announced a £220million programme to be carbon neutral by 2012.
There are other statistics to suggest the public’s changing viewpoint on ethical and green matters. A recent MORI poll indicated that 78% of us want companies to tell us about their responsibility to customers, employees, communities and the environment. Mintel predict that British shoppers will spend £2million on Fair Trade and organic products in 2007. This will be a 62% increase from 2002.
The indications are that it’s not just shoppers who are ethically minded but investors as well. The Co-Operative Bank has shown that monies in ethical finance (that’s ethical banking and investment) now invest £11.6 billion a year. That’s up from £10.6 billion in 2005. No wonder that ‘green’ money is the fastest growing sector at the moment!!
