Ethical living

Ethical living is the philosophy of making decisions for daily life which take into account ethics and moral values, particularly with regard to consumerism, sustainability, environmentalism, wildlife and animal welfare. At present it is largely a personal choice, and not an organized social movement.

Ethical living is an offshoot of sustainable living, in which the individual initially takes a series of small lifestyle changes in order to limit their effect on the environment. Making the decision to start to live ethically, can be as easy as beginning to recycle, switching off electric lights when leaving a room, buying local organic or fairtrade produce. Though many people often go further by re-using/re-cycling waste water, using renewable resources in their homes (solar panels or atmospheric water generators), giving up the use of the family car in preference of greener modes of transport (bicycle).

Though ethical living is growing in popularity, many in the environmental movement believe that the responsibility of ethical practice should be enforced on "Big Business". They argue that the onus is being unfairly laid on the individual to change the way they live in order to effect change, as these everyday changes are often insignificant in comparison to the level of changes that large organizations or multinational corporations could make.

See also

• Ethical consumerism
• Fairtrade labelling
• Simple living
• Sustainable living
• Intentional living
• Personal life

External links

• Ethical Today, Ethical Living News
• Living Ethically, a website for the philosophy
• Ethical Journey BBC journalist reporting on the highs and lows of living ethically
• Buying Organic Shopping and Living Organic and Ethical
• Eco-Green Pages, a website for environmental news, eco shopping and green events
• People for Ethical Living, a center for resources and information about corporate and government policies, corporate farming, the cost of a global economy, destructive consumerism, the corporate media and the intense suffering of animals in farms and experimentation. "Be the change you want to see in the world"