Ethical living is a choice of lifestyle that takes into account ethics and moral value with regard to the environment, your community, sustainability, animal welfare and what you buy. It is clear we cannot rely on the man in charge to create an ethical country for us all to live in and it is not as hard as you think to lead an ethical life, there are plenty of options to help you make this choice. Ethical living can be as easy as starting to recycle, keeping your energy use to a minimum, buying organic food, buying locally all the way to living in a co-operative household.
Cooperative housing is still relatively uncommon in the UK, but the extensive waiting list signifies the growing popularity for this style of living. Salvador Just is currently subletting a room in a shared house in the UK’s oldest cooperative, he is using his experience to set up his very own cooperative in the near future. Sanford Cooperative Housing in New Cross was purposely built as a housing project in the 70’s, the houses are gas free and omit 60% less CO2 than other houses that were built in that decade. To live in a cooperative, contributing a skill or trade is desired. Everyone has a vote in how the property is run, there is no individual ownership or person in charge and members make use of their skills to contribute to the maintenance of the property. Just gave me the tour of the cooperative, past the gentle trickle of the koi pond and over the bike shed/auditorium seating he showed me the outdoor pizza oven, the vegetable garden, the bike workshop (with dozens of bicycles littered around) and the tool shed. Benefits of living in a cooperative are that the rent is low and any maintenance and cost of tools is covered by the member’s rent so there is never a need to buy your own tools, if you need to mend something you pop your head into the workshop and use the cooperative’s shared tools. Shared living and assets brings the cost of living to a minimum, which also makes room for another great benefit as Just says: “Most of the people living in the coop only work part time as they can afford too, so this gives you more time to be creative and be more social.” A magazine called ‘The San’ is sent around to all the members sharing other members’ skills, reviews and upcoming film nights and themed parties that are held in the coop. Sanford is home to 120 people, which is divided into around 8 people per house, Sanford is for single people only and you sign a contract for life. If you want to live as a couple you sadly have to leave the coop, which is one of the reasons why Just is planning to make his future coop open to couples and families, but also a lot smaller than Sanford. Other than that, Just also plans to make his coop even more sustainable than Sanford, with self sufficient power, aqauponics and allocated energy. The process of setting up a coop in the UK is long even with the high demand, but with the increase in ethical banks that support initiatives such as cooperative housing they could become more widespread.
Everyone is angry at the banks and soon there will be an opportunity to take action on your anger and it is entirely legal and peaceful. March sees the launch of the Move Your Money Campaign a campaign encouraging people to move their money to ethical banks that do not pay their staff huge bonuses and also will not charge you a fortune if you go over your limit. There are a number of ethical banks that you can start banking with one of which is the Co-Operative bank which so far is the only ethical bank that offers a current account, its ethical commitment is to the environment, international development and animal welfare. Then there is Triodos Bank and the Charity Bank who both have commitments that benefit community organisations, charities and projects ranging from housing to wind farms. This is all a long cry away from the commitments of the profit driven “big 5” banks.
We all need to eat and for most of us it is our biggest expense after living, but what not all of us know is how the food we buy is aiding the destruction of the rain forest to make way for soya, maize and sugar plantations and how perfectly good fruit and vegetables are thrown away by the ton because they aren’t ‘good looking’ enough. If everyone consumed as much as we do in the UK, we would need 3 planets’ worth of resources to support us. With food and farming responsible for one fifth of all the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions we need to be more aware of what we can do to decrease the negative impact we have on the planet, one simple way of doing that is choosing local and organic food. With the internet it is now even simpler to buy organic. There are a number of websites where you can order fruit and vegetables and even meat that is delivered directly to your door, you don’t even have to be home to receive your delivery. Abel and Cole deliver fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables to your door on specific days of the week depending on where you live, you can choose which vegetables you prefer and how often you want them delivered for no more cost than a trip to Sainsbury’s.
Do we really need another Tesco? We’re all lured in by the convenience of cheap food, but if you look further than the price tag you will see that the cost of cheap food is very high for small businesses, the environment, local farmers and even taxpayers. The big daddy of all super markets Tesco owns more land in the UK that any other supermarket, this isn’t obvious at first since they don’t always build yet another Tesco Metro, Tesco Extra or Tesco 24 hour superstore, but they will own the land so that no one else can, every time a Tesco opens a small business suffers. Tesco will not be recognised as a monopoly until they own 25% of the market share, but if Tesco continues to buy property, open stores and complete its ‘cradle to the grave’ cycle, it is not a very long way off. This may not seem like a big problem while Tesco’s prices remain low but once they have monopoly over all the other supermarkets and small businesses, they will have the power to raise prices and have access to your personal information and consumer preferences. Large supermarkets purchase their products from industrial farms, pack houses and canning factories that make use of cheap migrant workers, instead of supporting local farmers who employ workers at the legal wage. Supermarkets also encourage us as consumers to buy products that are out of season and not even grown in this country, they also increase the use of pesticides, fertilizers and factory farms that are harmful to us and the environment. It is not difficult to change your shopping habits especially as we live in a city where a local market is never far away make a difference by reducing the amount you buy in supermarkets and support your local independent retailers.
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