Increasingly people are taking personal responsibility for their impact on the planet. For example, they are more concerned about ethical food choices. But it seems that steps to reduce world poverty—such as integrating developing nations more fully into international trade—may be bad for the environment.
This article looks at the apparent trade-off between buying the products of developing countries (rather than always locally made or grown products) and the burden that increased trade places on the planet. A related article looks at a possible approach that you, as an ethical consumer concerned with both world poverty and sustainability, might consider.
The Debate
The argument that there is an environmental cost to feeding the planet has taken many forms: for example, concern about the possible negative effects of genetically engineered supercrops, and debates about food versus biofuel crops. Recently some of the most vigorous arguments have been around whether expanding international trade to more fully include developing countries is a good thing, given the environmental costs of such things as transportation.
Liberal versus Ecological Perspectives
In an essay in the D. Kelly- and W. Grant-edited book The Politics of International Trade in the Twenty-First Century (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Peter Newell describes an apparently unresolvable debate between liberal trade advocates and those taking an ecological position.
The liberal view is that, as incomes in developing countries rise with free trade, there will be an increased demand for environmental quality. The free trade that is promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organisation (WTO) encourages countries to grow or produce what they can best specialise in for an export market.
Those with an ecological perspective point to the huge environmental impact of ship- or air-freighting goods around the world (an estimated one-tenth of world oil production is taken up in transportation), and the polluting impact of additional packaging and long-life pesticides and preservatives. This view holds that the economic notion of “comparative advantage”—that it is most efficient to make products from components sourced all over the world (to access lowest possible labour and other input costs)—makes no sense in a world facing major environmental challenges.
The Link with Poverty
So where does this leave the poorest countries? Newell reports the concern of social activists that the drive for export-led growth (reinforced in many cases by requirements of the World Bank and IMF) “locks developing countries into inherently unfair and exploitative trade relations.” Worse, growing crops from export has sometimes been at the expense of food security.
What, then, should an ethical consumer do? In his book A Good Life: The Guide to Ethical Living, Leo Hickman describes ethical or sustainable living as working to make your ecological footprint small, that is, striving for minimal negative impact on the world. In itself, this would suggest the best approach is simply to consume and buy locally, and let the rest of the world do the same.
There are complications, however. Hickman refers to a dimension of ethical wellbeing as emotional wellbeing, such as addressing one’s relationship with others. For consumers, this idea could translate into “how to look at a product in a shop and relate to the person who produced it.” As consumers are members of the global community, ethical wellbeing might include a concern with issues such as world hunger.
A related article on Suite 101, Fair Trade and Ethical Shopping, suggests a possible middle ground, an approach not involving a need to choose between the environment and tackling global poverty.
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