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).

In 2005, Britons spent £25.8bn on ethical goods and services, an increase of 15 per cent from 2004. 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.

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