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Ethical Consumer, Issue 172, May/June 2018 www.ethicalconsumer.org EC172 May/June 2018 £4.25 Can you see where your money goes? We rank finance companies on their transparency Product guides to: Current Accounts Savings Accounts App Banks Ethical Pensions Home & Car Insurance Ethical Investment Funds Plus: Company responses to the Modern Slavery Act Contents ethicalconsumer.org MAY/JUNE 2018 who’s who p4 product guides this Issue’s editors Rob Harrison, Jane Turner, Josie Wexler finance special proofing Ciara Maginness (littlebluepencil.co.uk) 15 directors’ pay writers/researchers Jane Turner, Tim Hunt, Leonie Nimmo, Rob Harrison, Heather Webb, Anna Clayton, 16 BankTrack Joanna Long, Josie Wexler, Ruth Strange, Mackenzie Denyer, Clare Carlile, Francesca de la Torre 17 Save Our Bank regular contributors Simon Birch, Bryony Moore, 24 Banking on Climate Change Shaun Fensom, Colin Birch design and layout Adele Armistead (Moonloft), Jane 25 Don’t Bank on the Bomb Turner 43 crowdfunding cover © Anon Luengwanichprapa | Dreamstime.com cartoons Marc Roberts, Andy Vine, Richard Liptrot current accounts ad sales Simon Birch 10 introduction subscriptions Elizabeth Chater, Francesca Thomas p54 press enquiries Simon Birch, Tim Hunt 12 score table & Best Buys enquiries Heather Webb web editor Georgina Rawes thanks also to Eleanor Boyce, Ashraf Hamad, Josh savings accounts Wittingham, Jess Aurie 18 building societies All material correct one month before cover date and © 19 cash ISAs Ethical Consumer Research Association Ltd. ISSN 0955 8608. 20 score table & Best Buys 23 credit unions Printed with vegetable ink by RAP Spiderweb Ltd, c/o the Commercial Centre, Clowes Centre, Hollinwood, Oldham OL9 7LY. 0161 947 3700. app banking Paper: 100% post-consumer waste, chlorine-free and 26 score table & Best Buys sourced from the only UK paper merchant supplying only recycled papers – Paperback (www.paperbackpaper.co.uk). home & car insurance 28 underwriters as big investors Retail distribution is handled by Central Books on 0845 458 9911. Ethical Consumer is a member of INK 30 score table & Best Buys (independent news collective), an association of radical 32 eco insurance and alternative publishers - www.ink.uk.com. We are a Living Wage employer, a multi-stakeholder ethical pensions co-op, and Fair Tax Mark accredited. news 34 divestment 06 food & home 36 score table & Best Buys plastic bottles, latte levy, krill, ethical investment funds Bayer Monsanto, teabags, Carex about the advertisers and palm oil, kangeroo meat 38 three questions you should ask ECRA checks out advertisers before accepting their ads 08 fair tax mark 40 score table & Best Buys and reserves the right to refuse any advert. Covered in previous Product Guides: Co-operative AMT certified, new staff phone & broadband (145), Ecology Building Society 09 boycotts (172), Kingfisher Toothpaste (165), Triodos (172), regulars the NRA, Constellation Brands, Vegetarian Shoes (162), Windmill Organics (166). World Cup Other advertisers: Abundance, Castlefield Partners, 52 subscriptions Green Building Store, Green Stationery, Infinity 45 ethical novice take out a subscription or give a Wholefoods, Investing Ethically, Medical Aid For the trials and tribulations of Palestine, Oikocredit, Railway Kids, Rhizome, gift that lasts a year banking ethically Womankind, YnNi Teg. 53 letters 47 clothes a regular forum for readers’ views Ethical Consumer Research dirty fashion, Bangladeshi Accord 54 inside view renewal, Measuring Fashion Association Ltd community ethical shares Unit 21, 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester, M15 5RF 48 climate t: 0161 226 2929 (12 noon-6pm) fracking actions, opencast e: [email protected] for general enquiries rejection, climate lawsuits [email protected] for subscriptions. features Follow us: @EC_magazine 49 beyond consumerism Worldwide Opportunities on 50 the modern slavery act Ethical Consumer Magazine Organic Farms (WWOOF) are companies complying? Editorial ethicalconsumer.org MAY/JUNE 2018 Jane Turner Editor The future of finance A Tobin Tax, long supported by Ethical Consumer, has the capacity to structurally address the disturbing The reputation of global financial firms was already poor levels of inequality observable across the world today. It before the crash of 2008. Since then bankers remain at has been vigorously opposed at every turn by financial the bottom of lists of trusted professionals along with companies whose myopic short-term self-interest 1 politicians, journalists and estate agents. State-owned reinforces the growing lack of trust in financial firms banking and community banking is rightly back on the generally. agenda of the UK’s parties of the left. Global financial firms have been without a moral compass for too long, For responsible companies, which argue that they their impact on humans, the environment and animals are long term investors, the effect would be relatively is simply not sustainable, and their credibility is wearing minor compared with the effect on short term traders thin. and dealers focused solely on price. For the financial companies in this report which are beginning to develop As part of the product guides in this issue there a reputation for more rather than less responsible is an article on page 10 entitled “A call for greater behaviour, this is the last piece of the jigsaw that needs transparency”. In it we have a glimpse of how this loss of to fall into place for them to become properly part of the moral direction might be rectified, using feedback loops solution we all need. where shareholders and customers can call companies to account on myriad specific issues. Only a few Extra guides on the web companies in this sector deliver fully on what we want, including Triodos Bank and WHEB Asset Management. See our website for further guides to business accounts, And though these two are small, they are financially mortgages and travel and pet insurance. successful, and can demonstrate to other financial institutions that radical transparency is not disastrous Our conference on racism but eminently practical. On May 22nd we’re holding an event in London looking at how we can challenge racism through consumer And what about social justice? action. At the Ethical Consumer conference in October last The recent rise in hate crimes has cast a shadow over year, we explored the power of corporate lobbying. A the UK and we want to explore ways that the Ethical key proposal was that, rather than pushing for it to be Consumer community can respond to this. The success outlawed, we should push for it to be exercised within of the Stop Funding Hate campaign has shown that a framework of social responsibility. In this way, and in consumer action can make a difference. We want to the hands of responsible companies, it could become an learn from their success and see what more we can all do ally of campaigners for sustainability and social justice. to stem the tide of racist incidents across the UK. In the short time since then, interest around the idea of ‘campaigning brands’ has only grown. You can find out more and buy your ticket at the Ethical Consumer site at www.ethicalconsumer.org/ In the transparency article on page 10 we have a list of challengingracism three demands, focusing on clear ethical policies and complete disclosure of all assets and voting records. But Subscribers can get a 20% discount on tickets. Sign in in the lobbying field, we have a fourth ask, and it is that and visit the Subscriber Area for more details. all financial firms consider becoming public supporters of a financial transactions tax. References: 1 Ipsos MORI Trust in Professions - Veracity Index 2017 Food and Home MAY/JUNE 2018 ethicalconsumer.org Plastic bottle action is victory for people power ‘The merger from hell’ The fight against plastic pollution Bayer and Monsanto are one step received a massive boost recently closer to controlling the food you eat when Michael Gove announced from farm to plate, having got their the re-introduction of a bottle proposed merger green-lighted by deposit return scheme. the European Union. This is a huge This is a clear victory for everyone blow to campaigners that claim to that has been campaigning on this have delayed the merger for two issue, including Greenpeace and years. However, the merger still Surfers Against Sewage. 329,314 needs to be approved in the USA. signed a 38 Degrees petition – one of Bayer’s takeover of Monsanto would the biggest in their history. create a company with control of over a The tipping point seems to have quarter of the world’s seed and pesticide been David Attenborough’s Blue market. Bayer makes most of its money Planet II series which highlighted the from pesticides, including bee-killing threat of ocean pollution and showed neonicotinoids, whilst Monsanto is a footage of wildlife eating plastic. seed giant which also makes Roundup UK consumers use around 13 billion plastic drinks bottles a year but more than (glyphosate), the world’s best selling three billion are not recycled. weedkiller that some European countries are trying to ban. It’s yet to be decided how much deposit consumers will pay, but people will get it back when they return the container. Costs in similar schemes elsewhere range from 22p in Germany to 8p in Sweden. About 40 countries worldwide have some kind of deposit return scheme for plastic bottles. Most involve returning bottles to an automated collection point, a reverse vending machine, or to the shop. The drinks industry may have to pick up the bill for the scheme, as they do in Norway, though they are not going to be happy. They currently only pay 10% of the cost of recycling plastic packaging. Give krill the boot “This merger will create the world’s Greenpeace are targeting Boots over its stocking of omega-3 supplements biggest and most powerful agribusiness made from Antarctic krill – tiny, shrimp-like animals which are the corporation, which will try to force its bedrock of the Antarctic food chain, and provide vital sustenance for genetically modified seeds and toxic whales and penguins.
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