Having been married and had a family, then been single, then been married
and had a family again, I can say conclusively it’s easier to be green when
you’re single. In fact, I’m pretty sure there must be a rule somewhere which
states that your ability to be green is inversely proportional to the number of
people in your household.
Take shopping. During my time as a bachelor, I hardly knew what the
inside of a supermarket looked like. Most of my shopping was done at either a
Middle Eastern style grocery store at the bottom of my road or at a wholefood
shop in the centre of town. I probably paid over the odds for what I got, but
as I was mostly just feeding myself it didn’t much matter.
Things changed once I started having children again. Within the space of
a few months, I went from feeding myself and my (big) kids on occasional
weekends to catering for a family of four every day of the week. My weekly shop
quadrupled while my income, if anything, declined as the demands of fatherhood
set in. Suddenly, buying locally-produced honey at £4.20 a pot seemed an
extravagance, when you could get the same quantity for half the price at a nearby
supermarket. And what about tofu? Did it make sense to buy our nice ethical
brand of tofu from the Middle Eastern store when exactly the same product was
available from Morrisons for at least £1 less?
The purist in me argued we should buy local regardless and avoid
supermarkets at all costs. But I also had to remind myself that, being
self-employed, I needed to put money aside to pay my tax bill at the end of the
year, plus the baby needed to be kept in nappies, and sooner or later I would
have to buy myself some new shoes. Not only that but, if we were to keep our
sanity, we would need a holiday sometime. It was all very well being green, but
if it meant spiralling into debt then I had to admit we had probably got the
balance wrong.
Then we moved from a small seaside flat
to a spacious three-bed house on top of the hill. We were now a 20-minute walk
away from the nearest shops with no car, one toddler and my wife heavily
pregnant with our second baby (and I use the word ‘heavily’ advisedly, as he
turned out to be a whopping ten-pounder!). Unless I wanted to spend all my free
time lugging foodstuffs up the hill, we would have to take drastic action: we
would have to go to a supermarket.
The
compromise was to shop at the Co-Op, which seemed the least bad of the big
supermarket chains. Despite their recent acquisition of the Somerfield chain,
the Co-Op still features in most lists of most environmentally-friendly
supermarkets, mainly because of its record on animal welfare and its range of
Fairtrade and organic products. It ranks third on the unadjusted list of
supermarkets on the Ethical Consumer website – interestingly after Budgens and Londis – and was
included in the Ecologist’s list of six ‘greener’ supermarkets in the UK. Just
as importantly, they offered free home delivery – though sadly not online.
For a little while, we were able to carry on buying our fruit and veg
from the Middle Eastern grocery, where the produce was not only fresh but also
cheap. But then that closed down – presumably because everyone was buying their
tofu at Morrisons for £1 less – and was replaced by a Sainsbury’s Local. We
were bereft.
An organic veg box was the obvious solution, but which one? After being
disappointed by a local box which was as boring as it was stingy, we got
tempted by a free offer from Abel & Cole. It didn’t take long for us to be won around by their efficient online
service and free gifts. The day I saw a celeriac in the box and said out loud,
‘What the hell do I with a celeriac?’, and then immediately found a leaflet
which said, ‘What the hell do I
with a celeriac?’ (or words to that effect), I was converted. You can’t argue
with that level of customer service.
And so
for the past two years, we have had a weekly delivery from the Co-Op – less
convenient than Ocado, as you can’t shop online and more expensive than Asda,
but they make the best frozen pizzas – plus a weekly veg box from Abel &
Cole. We also have a monthly delivery of staples such as soya milk and
spaghetti courtesy our local wholefood wholesalers, which includes a 15%
donation to the local Green Party – more of which another time.
Of course we could have sacrificed our holiday, or I could have bought
some cheap trainers rather than those fancy vegetarian ‘leather’ shoes. Unless
you are well off or willing to sacrifice your quality of life, going green is
always going to be a trade off between competing principles. And at some point
you are likely to have to make a pact with the devil.
I now
know what the inside of a supermarket looks like: I know that Asda makes a
surprisingly good range of frozen vegetarian food and that Sainsbury’s is the
only supermarket which regularly stocks Belgian waffles. But I still don’t
known what the inside of Tesco’s looks like.
On the plus side, I’m pleased to report that we still buy the expensive
local honey. Some things are too good to give up.
Ethical
score, UK supermarkets (out of 20, unadjusted)
Budgens 7
Londis 7
Co-Op 6.5
Farmfoods 6.5
Booths 6
Costcutter 5.5
Iceland 5.5
Marks & Spencer 5.5
McColl 5.5
Premier 5.5
Spar 5.5
Aldi 5
Lidl 5
Waitrose 4.5
Morrisons 3
Sainbury’s 2
Tesco 1
Asda 0
Netto 0
Source:
Ethical Consumer
www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/food/supermarkets.aspx
Greener Grocers:
Six Ethical Supermarkets
Unicorn Grocery
Co-Op
Unicorn Food Co
Grassroots Organics
Planet Organic
People’s Supermarket
Source: www.theecologist.org
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