Tips for Shopping

Buy things used things (reworked items, vintage, second hand)

• Clothing waste is a leading polluter in landfills worldwide, contributing to massive amounts of pollutant release during the incineration and storage processes of abandoned textiles. 
• Choosing to buy second-hand items extends the lifespan of garments and reduces the amount of landfill waste while allowing consumers to shop traditionally unsustainable brands. 
• Shopping inherently creates a supply and demand system and buying from brands who do not practice ethical or sustainable sourcing and manufacturing processes further enables these practices. Slowing down the cycle of fast fashion, second-hand goods minimize the exploitation of both the environment and workers in the manufacturing process. Shopping responsibly doesn’t always equal forfeiting your favorite designers if buying goods that have already been purchased before.
• Attitudes on buying secondhand have changed in recent years, as online shopping platforms have made finding your size, desired brand, and budget easily accessible. Online retailers such as thredUP, Depop, The Real Real, and Vestiaire are revolutionizing the process of second-hand shopping, making it just as easy as any other type of online shopping, and offering designer and name-brand goods. 
• Buying second-hand also is a way to make shopping sustainable financially accessible, as prices are normally heavily discounted from the original retail tag. Supporting second-hand shops, online or in-person, helps improve accessibility for all to shop more responsibly.  
• Reworked items also elongate products' life cycles while creating unique, one-of-a-kind materials using pre-worn garments and minimal additional fabrics. 
• Clothing waste also poses ethical issues, as it contributes to a type of environmental segregation, targeting low-income or BIPOC communities. Incineration is not only an environmentally determinantal process but also an often discriminatory practice as incinerators and landfills are often purposefully placed in marginalized communities, disproportionately exposing them to hazardous waste they are not equally contributing to. Access to clean air and water should not be a privilege that comes with race or class status, an unfortunate occurrence that is currently a result of multiple zoning laws in industrial communities. 

Buy Local

• Shopping local is a fantastic way to not only reduce your environmental footprint but also to invest back into local economies. 
• Local businesses make up a large sector of the job market, often offering employment that follows stricter ethical principles than big businesses outsourcing at larger national or international firms. This translates to better working conditions and benefits for employees and ensures that employees are paid fair wages according to US labor laws.
• The physical location of local businesses also makes them more desirable. Usually, local businesses are located in city centers or central locations, which decreases urban sprawl, habitat loss, congestion, and construction-driven pollution. 
• Locally owned businesses also tend to source from local vendors, reducing transportation emissions on both business and consumer sides. In addition, shopping locally generally requires little to no shipping processes, minimizing waste from packaging as well. 
• Local businesses also tend to understand their product at a more detailed level, providing consumers with more transparency and traceability of the supply chain. Smaller-scale operations allow businesses to fully audit and supervise resource sourcing, manufacturing, and treatment of workers, which can be more difficult on a larger scale.

Support Small business | Support Women and POC Owned Businesses

Investing your money into vulnerable populations and communities.

• Supporting groups who have historically faced discrimination helps even out generational and systemic economic inequalities. 
• Buying from woman-owned businesses helps elevate and even out gender disparities in business. Statistics also show that women also tend to invest more in local communities and families, aligning with consumer interests and distributing wealth in mutually beneficial ways. While the wage gap still exists, investing in women-owned businesses actively works to lessen the disparities. 
• Women and minority-run groups often have a harder time gaining access to startup funds, including bank loans and third-party investments and begin at an unfair disadvantage to businesses started by their white, male, counterparts. 
• Employment inequality is an issue that many minorities face, as the unemployment rate is, and has been consistently higher for Blacks and Hispanics in the United States. Small businesses are responsible for large amounts of job creation, addressing and helping mitigate these inequalities. If you can preferably shop from a small business owned by a BIPOC, even better!

Made in the USA

• Shopping products manufactured in the USA minimizes shipping distances and in turn greenhouse emissions. Shipping internationally is not only fuel-intensive, relying on fossil fuels instead of green energy, but also allows corporations to loophole emission regulations due to the international nature.  
• The USA has stricter labor laws, promoting and ensuring ethical manufacturing via factory standards, strict minimum wages, and overall worker treatment standards. Businesses often choose to manufacture abroad in countries with less strict laws due to the low-cost nature, harming the environment and profiting off of mistreatment of vulnerable communities. This often translates to unsafe working conditions, unfair working hours, and little to no employee benefits. Minimum wages aren’t universal, a fact many corporations choose to take advantage of to profit on. 
• Buying US-made products also helps benefit the national economy and is a large proponent in job creation, helping lower the unemployment rate that can often adversely affect minorities.