Buying bad things

Perhaps it's not just any old countertop...

This article on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's potentially unethical investments and this article on the plight of stonecutters in India shows just how hard it can be to spend and invest money without consequences that are to someone's detriment, however far away they might be.

I'd assumed that the granite used to make bench tops in Australian kitchens would have been quarried here. If I'd had a kitchen to renovate I doubt I would have thought to ask where the stone used to make the counters had come from.

The Gates Foundation has poured $US218 million ($280 million) into polio and measles immunisation and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time it has invested $US423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total of France - the companies responsible for blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the US or Europe.

When it comes to investments, it's a big job keeping track of potential ethical pitfalls. Investing in an oil company that pollutes and screws the local population in ways that would be illegal in Australia might be unethical, but is it unethical to invest in a bank that may funnel some of its investments into the very same oil company? It's bloody hard to keep track of all the bad deeds done by various multinational companies because most of it doesn't make the news- or when it does, it might be years down the track. Here the issue appears to be fairly clear-cut, but that's not always the case.

It's not only for big purchases that some consideration is required of the implications of one's spending. Gam and I try and make a point of noting where our purchases come from, but aside from a few exceptions it isn't really possible to know about the local industry of every single grocery item you buy. I make a point of buying Australian grown and made where it's possible, avoiding US-grown produce because of their practice of subsidising their own farmers and flogging the cheap produce in foreign markets, destroying local industries. Ever noticed how hard it is to find walnuts available in the supermarket that haven't been grown in the US? Another item that we avoid buying is Italian tinned tomatoes, a decision until recently based upon our desire to support Australian growers, bolstered by our recent reading of an article on the abuse of immigrants in the Italian tomato-growing industry. I can't for the life of me find the article, however.

The one Australian-grown item that I buy but have reason to feel conflicted about is rice. I just love Sunrice' brown calrose rice; I've never encountered brown rice that has a comparable flavour and texture. In this case, buying Australian grown might not be the most ethical purchase decision I could make because rice is such a 'thirsty' crop, and despite the fact that Australian rice-growers are more water-efficient than many of their overseas counterparts, Australia has a heck of a lot less water to spare than probably all of them.

In what appears to be a clear-cut non-ethical purchase decision, at the end of 2005 when we had to make cuts in our budget we switched from buying our coffee from Oxfam stores at $50/kg to buying an Italian brand from Coles at $25/kg (on special). The more ethical thing to have done would have been to drink half as much coffee and keep buying it from Oxfam. Being a caffeine-addict won out over doing the right thing.

I'm quite sure that of the wide variety of grocery items we buy there are many more stories of situations which we'd prefer not to be supporting by our purchase, but as with the investments, news or information might not become available until several years later. Even though it's probably easier (and in the case of investments, more profitable) to turn a blind eye to such things, I think it's much better when consumers make an informed decision.

Update 12/01/07: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's chief operating officer Cheryl Scott has responded to the aforementioned news by saying it will review its investments.

"There will be cases where the harm caused by a particular company or industry is so evident that we will decide not to invest in it," Ms Scott said in a statement on the group's website.