What Is Ethical Consumption?

In this introductory episode, we explain what the Pullback podcast is all about. To illustrate how difficult it is to know what the right thing to do is, Kristen quizzes Kyla on the world of ethical consumption. If you are interested in trying the quiz, you can access it here.

Episode Transcript

Kyla: Welcome to Pullback! I’m Kyla Hewson and I’m here with my friend Kristen Pue.

Kristen: Kyla and I have been friends for ages, and we’re teaming up to make a podcast about ethical consumption, which is something that we’ve both been thinking about a lot lately.

Kyla: I think a lot of people have been thinking about it more, especially… I dunno, it’s been in the news a lot. Particularly, I have been travelling a lot more in the past few years and seeing how tourism is affecting the world and seeing how different countries handle waste or water management or labour rights has been an eye opener, for sure.

Kristen: Yeah, so Kyla has the life experience, and I am a PhD student, which essentially means that I’m a professional reader of boring reports. So, I will bring lots and lots of data that I’ve been reading about and really interested in as we’ve been working on the podcast.

Kyla: I know many people want to incorporate ethical practices into their daily lives. I do, anyways, but this can be… overwhelming might be the word? We’re gonna put that in our intro because that’s the right word. It’s often not easy to find and understand the information that would help us to align our consumption choices with our values, whatever they are.

Kristen: In any consumption decision that we might want to make, there’re different intersecting values that we might want to balance. So, for example, should we prioritize working conditions for labourers, or the environmental impact of a production process?

Kyla: Or, what if a company that is better on LGBTQ issues has a worse track record on animal cruelty?

Kristen: Is it moral to buy a product that might reduce your environmental footprint if that product is produced in a region that is illegitimately controlled by a government or rebel group?

Kyla: Should you refrain from buying a product because a company has prevented its workers from unionizing, even if it’s the only company offering that product that is both affordable and doesn’t test on animals? How do you choose!?

[EXASPERATED LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: We are so fucked. So, ultimately, people might answer these questions differently, and that’s ok. But in order to make those decisions, we first have to have the information at our disposal. Sometimes that information doesn’t exist, and other times it’s out there but it’s difficult to find and understand.

Kyla: We try to look at every episode from different ethical standpoints focusing on 3 main factors: environment, people, and animals.

Kristen: Environmental stewardship includes things like greenhouse gas emissions, sustainability, land use, energy use, and waste.

Kyla: People, or human rights, covers labour practices, human displacement, slavery, conflict, homophobia, and racism.

Kristen: And animal welfare includes factory farming and animal testing.

Kyla: We started Pullback because we were struggling to make ethical consumption choices ourselves. As we try, and frequently fail, to be good people we will bring you the information on consumer movements, product labels, and ethical lifestyles. Ultimately, our goal is to make it a little easier for you to navigate the world of ethical consumption, since we’re trying to figure it out ourselves anyways.

Kristen: But with, like, a fun and non-preachy tone, y’know…

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Each episode we’re going to challenge ourselves to try something new in ethical consumption, and then we’ll tell you what we learned, fuck ups and all.

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

Kyla: Alright Kristen, quiz me!

Kristen: OK. I’ll just explain a little bit about what this quiz is. We were trying to think about a way to introduce the podcast, and one of the ideas that came up was to sort of put together a quiz that covers different elements of ethical consumption and sort of highlights how hard it is to make these choices. So, I have deliberately made this quiz really hard.

Kyla: Oh, so don’t judge me when I get every question wrong?

Kristen: I think, I think there’s one question I would have gotten for sure and other than that… I dunno. Just bear that in mind, listeners, Kyla’s not supposed to be getting these questions right and if you do not know the answer to these questions, that is just more evidence that you should listen to future episodes, as we’ll try to cover those topics.

Kyla: OK I’m really excited but also, I feel like I just woke up. Because I did. So, hopefully this goes well, I’m ready Kristen.

Kristen: Great. OK, so it’s a ten-question quiz, we’ll start with question one. Which of the following ethical consumer labels is made up? So, which one is not real? So, A) Rainforest Alliance Certified, B) Bunny Safe, C) Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and D) Marine Stewardship Council.

Kyla: Hmm… the rainforest one?

Kristen: Noooooo! That one’s real!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: Oh no! Which one’s fake? Is it the roundtable on palm?

Kristen: Nope, that one’s also real.

Kyla: What!? Ok then I definitely wouldn’t’ve gotten it.

Kristen: It’s, it’s Bunny Safe. You might be thinking of Leaping Bunny, so that was very tricksy.

Kyla: Ah, Kristen…

Kristen: The point being, there are a million eco labels out there and it’s impossible to know which ones are good or not. We’ll talk about that on the podcast later. OK, so question two. And this one is taken from a CNN quiz that I found, and it’s essentially… they’re using an NGO group called Project Drawdown which has evaluated different climate change solutions. And so, the quiz covers various elements of, like, which climate change solutions are the most effective ones. So, if you don’t like the answers it’s… take it up with CNN/Project Drawdown. Alright. Question two. Which of the following four food related solutions would be most effective in addressing climate change? So, option A) is composting your waste. Option B) is cooking over clean stoves. Option C) is throwing away less food. And option D) is eating a plant heavy diet.

Kyla: Oh, OK I think I know this one. Is it D?

Kristen: It’s not! That’s what I thought it was too.

Kyla: What? No! Oh my goodness…

Kristen: Yeah, it’s really close though. So, the answer is throwaway less food. So, food waste is a slightly better climate change solution than plant-based diet. But I’ll just… I’ll give you the figures on these, they’re very close so I think you essentially get this one right, cuz they’re not that different. Throwing away less food, in the United States, is estimated to taking away 495 million cars off the road. For eating a plant-based diet it’s 464 million cars, so pretty similar. Whereas the other two solutions were much less effective. So, cooking over clean stoves would’ve taken the equivalent of 111 million cars off the road. And composting your waste only takes 16 million cars off the road.

Kyla: So, wait, who did the research on this? Was this CNN?

Kristen: So, it was… it’s based on a group called Project Drawdown. So, they’re, like, an NGO that looks at and ranks the climate solutions, and CNN just basically used their data and made it into a quiz. You can find it online. We’ll also post to it. For question 3 I kind of punted and also did another question from this same quiz. So, here we go. Which of these waste related solutions would be most effective in addressing climate change? So, option A) building with greener cement compounds. Option B) increasing household recycling. Option C) cleaning up chemicals in our refrigerators and air conditioners. And option D) using water more efficiently.

Kyla: Ok, I feel really confident about this one. Is it A?

Kristen: No!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: Oh no! Wait, wait, is it D?

Kristen: It is… it is C) cleaning up chemicals in our refrigerators and air conditioners.

Kyla: That would’ve been my last choice. I was like, I know cement is one of the worst industries in the world, then I know water management is… is important. But what’s wrong with your refrigerator?

Kristen: So, I’ll first say that building with greener cement was the second choice, so good job you.

Kyla: Yay, validation!

Kristen: Cleaning up chemicals in refrigerators is actually, like… a really potent greenhouse gas. So, having cleaner refrigerators and air conditioners would be similar to taking 629 million cars off the road. So, that would have a bigger effect than everybody going to a plant-based diet in America, or everybody throwing away less food, so…

Kyla: Holy shit…

Kristen: Yeah. And I can… I did a little bit of research on why if you’re interested?

Kyla: Yes, but should we just do a whole episode on refrigerators?

Kristen: We should, but I can give a brief explanation now if you’d like.

Kyla: Yes, I would like, because this is news to me.

Kristen: So, have you ever heard about the ozone hole problem?

Kyla: Yes. Yeah, that’s where, like, a whole bunch of greenhouse gases are eating away the ozone layer and now there’s, like, a big hole over Australia, or is it the arctic I don’t remember? Or is it just everywhere? Is there no ozone left!?

Kristen: The hole is actually getting a lot smaller. This is one of those, like, rare success stories in international politics for environmental issues. So basically in the mid-20th century we used to use chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs and hydrochlorofluorocarbons or HCFCs in our refrigerators. Because they were super effective and refrigerators were great, everybody was going gangbusters. But unfortunately, we then found that CFCs and HCFCs destroy the ozone layer. So that was a problem. And so, in 1987 the international community came together and agreed on a treaty, that’s called the Montreal Protocol, to basically ban CFCs and HCFCs. That treaty has been incredibly effective. Unfortunately, there was one problem. When refrigerators switched from CFCs and HCFCs they went to something called Hydrofluorocarbons, HFCs, which sounds very similar but is different. And although it doesn’t attack the ozone layer, it’s a super potent greenhouse gas. So effectively, the same units of HFCs have an effect that is between 1000 and 9000 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

Kyla: Whoa!

Kristen: So even if you have less of it, it’s real bad for the, like, the planet.

Kyla: Holy shit. So, what’s the… So, are there green refrigerators? Is there something we can do to fix our fridges?

Kristen: So, I think we’ll have to wait for an episode on what the solution is. There must be one though, because they have… they’re actually… this year an amendment called the Kigali amendment went into effect and it is supposed to be phasing out HFCs. So, if that works, we actually have a pretty good climate solution that may already be happening. It’s kind of the rare climate change good news story in 2019.

Kyla: Oh man, our promo episode is going to be so much more positive than… and hopeful than our real episodes.

Kristen: Yeah!

Kyla: Ok great! I’m ready for question four.

Kristen: Cool. I just wanna do a quick, like, shame, though, on the Kigali amendment. So, good job Canada, Australia, most countries in Europe, and a few African and Latin American Countries. You have ratified the Kigali Amendment. Bad, shame on you, United States, China, Brazil, and India. Which is bad, especially because China, Brazil, and India have all been identified as risk priority countries, so...

Kyla: Yeah of course…

Kristen: Yeah, so we really want them to ratify. Which hopefully happens.

Kyla: OK cool. We’ll… I’m super curious… I’m excited to learn more about refrigerators. Which is not a sentence I thought I would be saying this morning.

Kristen: I have one more thing for this set of questions. Are you curious to know what the top five overall climate change solutions that Project Drawdown identified were?

Kyla: Yes please!

Kristen: So, the number one overall was managing refrigeration chemicals. That was the number one effective climate change solution.

Kyla: Holy fuck! Jesus… I’ve never even heard of this issue!

Kristen: The second one was installing onshore wind turbines. So, if we really ramped up wind power it’d be effective.

Kyla: Really, that’s second?

Kristen: Yeah, second place. It’s pretty impressive.

Kyla: Fuck, ok.

Kristen: So, third and fourth you’ve already seen as well. So, cutting down on food waste and eating more plants and less meat. And then the last one, probably people could guess this, it’s restoring our tropical forests. Very important for climate change.

Kyla: Oh yeah, you mean the things that make air? Sure, no problem.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: Who cares about those…

Kristen: Yeah, the things that are on fire, oh we’re so screwed. But hey! HFCs are getting banned, that’s nice! OK ready for question four?

Kyla: Please, yes, hit me, I’m ready. I’m gonna get this one right.

Kristen: OK, my question is this: which country produces the most waste per capita?

Kyla: Ooo. Hmm…

Kristen: Oh, for listeners, per capita means, like, according to the size of your population, so…

Kyla: I don’t wanna, like, call anyone out. I feel like, ooo what if I say a name and then they’re mad at me? But ok, I have a guess. Per person, the most waste. Is it the United States?

Kristen: No!

Kyla: K, can I have a second guess?

Kristen: Uh-huh!

Kyla: Is it China?

Kristen: No!

Kyla: Can I have a third guess?

Kristen: You can, sure.

Kyla: Is it India?

Kristen: No.

Kyla: Ok I give up.

Kristen: You patriot you, it’s actually Canada, we suck!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: No! No that can’t be true!

Kristen: It is.

Kyla: We produce the most waste per capita?

Kristen: Yes. I got this from a USA Today article by Byrnes and Frohlich, and they themselves were drawing on a World Bank study. So, it’s actually a really cool database, I was playing around in it a lot. It’s called the What a Waste Database 2.0.

Kyla: That’s a great name.

Kristen: I’m a huge nerd. Yeah, What a Waste! It’s so clever, I’m sure whoever came up with it is very proud of themselves.

Both: They should be.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: So, the second-place country for per capita waste was Bulgaria, and then third is the United States, so you weren’t far off.

Kyla: Ok good, cuz I was like oh if it’s not the United States then maybe it’s one of the countries with more people. But I guess how is China and India making more waste than us, they’re not buying as much stuff as us.

Kristen: Yeah, and it’s actually kind of interesting, cuz it’s not… so the database, I spent a lot of time in this database. So first of all, it is true that high income countries waste more in general. So, high income countries are 16 percent of the world’s population, but they generate 34 percent of the world’s waste. So, we are wasteful, generally. But it’s important to note that Canada is the worst in waste overall, but if you look specifically at municipal solid waste, which is, like, the waste that regular people use, and like, businesses, we’re actually, like, only 22nd on the list, so it’s not as though we’re throwing out the most garbage. It’s other kinds of what they classify as special waste, which I think is weird because it’s actually most of the waste. But anyway, Iceland actually has the highest per capita municipal solid waste so there’s that, Iceland. But in terms of special waste does that mean anything to you, it didn't mean anything to me?

Kyla: No, do you know what… did you figure it out, what it was?

Kristen: Yeah, they had a bunch of subcategories. I actually… I redid the calculations to see if I could replicate this data and I was pretty successful so…

Kyla: Okay cool, so what's our special waste?

Kristen: There are a bunch of different categories, but the big ones tend to be industrial waste, agricultural waste, and construction industry waste. So, in a lot of countries construction industry waste can be as much as 90% of the waste. Construction waste is pretty big in countries like Bulgaria, Sweden, Finland, Liechtenstein, and Estonia. We have a lot of construction waste but that's not the, sort of, big factors for us, it's that we have a combination of lots of industrial waste per capita, and lots of agricultural waste per capita.

Kyla: Are you calling out the oil industry right now?

Kristen: I'm calling out industry right now.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Yeah, so per capita we're at the top of the list on industrial waste. So industrial waste is stuff like…

Kyla: Yiiiiikes…

Kristen: Yeah, things from refining and processing raw materials, and it also means manufacturing though, so the auto industry in Ontario also sucks.

Kyla: Aaaaahhhhh…!

Kristen: And provides lots of good jobs, like, I dunno, anyway…

Kyla: Oh yeah that’s the thing, now if we look at the human rights side of it it’s like, well, what happens to those people who work in that industry? Everything is broken!

Kristen: Yeah, but we can definitely be doing a better job of being clean. The United States comes in second on that one, so industrial waste is pretty big. Also, Armenia, Japan, and China are the next biggest per capita on industrial waste. Canada also tops the list for agricultural waste, though, which is another reason that we were sort of bumped on the top of the list, cuz usually you’re only at the top on one of those two categories.

Kyla: Oh, I feel so ashamed right now.

[KRISTEN LAUGHS]

Kristen: Yeah. So, the next countries for agricultural waste are China, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Netherlands. So, China is the only other one that comes sort of in the top five on industrial waste and agricultural waste.

Kyla: OK well I feel less bad for calling out China earlier, then.

Kristen: No yeah, and China and the United States both also waste a lot. The United States produces 8.4 billion metric tonnes of waste every year. It’s a lot. And for us it’s only 1.3 billion cuz we’re a smaller country, but per capita it’s bigger.

Kyla: Ok. OK.

Kristen: OK. Ready for question five?

Kyla: Yes!

Kristen: According to Ethical Consumer, which is an NGO that provides information for people about ethical consumption, which phone brand is the least ethical? I’ll tell you, it’s, like, a phone brand that you’ve definitely heard of, it’s one of the big ones.

Kyla: Is it Samsung?

Kristen: It is Samsung! Holy shit, I would never have gotten that!

Kyla: Yes! And the crowd goes wild! She got one!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Yeah! So Ethical Consumer is a really cool organization, I subscribe to them, other people should too. They do a bunch of things, but one of the things that they do is rate companies and products on a range of ethical criteria. So, their mobile phone ratings give major phone brands a score out of 20, and that’s a holistic score that looks at people, politics, animals, and product sustainability. They basically… the way it works is they start every product or company with a score of 14 and then you lose points if you’re criticized in one or more categories. So oftentimes they’ll take other NGOs reports and say, “ok, Samsung was, like, really shitty on this thing so we’re going to take a way a point.” Or you don’t get a point taken away if you were seen as being in the middle or pretty good, so.

Kyla: Did you have who the best phone company was?

Kristen: I do, yeah, and it’s not surprising. The best phone company is this company called Fairphone.

Kyla: Oh yeah, of course.

Kristen: But they only got 14, so. Anyway, I’ll explain how it works a little bit more. They get points taken away every time they’re criticized in one or more categories, and they can also get points added if they commit to certain things across the whole company, so, like, if they commit to product sustainability, or if they have fair trade certification. And Ethical Consumer basically considers a 14 or more to be an ethical company. So Fairphone is the only one on the whole list that is in that category, and it has exactly 14. Anyone that scores between 5 and 13 is the middle range, which is where most phone companies end up. And anything under 5 is “needs improvement”. So, Samsung was the only one on the list that was under 5 points, and it had 3.5.

Kyla: Whoa, Samsung, shame on you!

Kristen: Yeah. I spent a little bit of time looking at why they did so badly, and generally it’s that they have lots of violations in the politics and people sections. You could definitely go down a rabbit hole on this, so I’ll just say some of the notable violations in the politics category include tax avoidance, spending lots of money on lobbying, and planned obsolescence, so like deliberately slowing down phones when they get older.

Kyla: Bastards!

Kristen: Yeah! And then some of the violations in “people” included the fact that it does military and defence contracting. The company is also invested in cluster munitions producers and those are, like, illegal tools of war. So that’s really fucked, Samsung. As well as poor labour practices and union blocking. So, I also just wanna say that Samsung was actually a middle performer on the environment, so if environment is your value, they actually didn’t do that badly. But they do have some problems in that area, like all companies.

Kyla: I’m scared Samsung’s going to come after us now.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: We’re using someone else’s rating, so we’ll be fine, I think.

Kyla: OK great. Yeah that’s not us. Samsung… don’t at us.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Don’t at us Samsung. OK, question 6. So, Fashion Revolution is a global NGO that’s working to make the fashion industry safer, cleaner, and fairer. Every year it publishes a fashion transparency index which basically just rates the transparency of 200 major fashion brands. And transparency as they define it basically means public disclosure of sourcing relationships and of companies social and environmental policies and practices, goals and targets, governance, performance, and progress. So, it means that they’re disclosing things, it doesn’t actually necessarily mean they’re doing good things. So, at any rate, the transparency index is sort of a push to get more information out there for the fashion industry. So, this question is taken from the 2019 Transparency Index. There are three companies that received the highest transparency score, which was 64%.

Kyla: That’s so low!

Kristen: Which of the following companies was not one of the top three high scorers? A) Adidas, B) Patagonia, C) Reebok, or D) Kate Spade?

Kyla: Ooo. I feel like Patagonia and Kate Spade would be in the top three? And so, I’m gonna say… Reebok.

Kristen: No! It’s Kate Spade!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: Are you serious?

Kristen: Yeah.

Kyla: Oh no, but the branding is all, like, y’know, catering to young millennial women. Like, I would think… oh no, Kate Spade… but you’re so cute…

Kristen: I know! I was also crushed by this.

Kyla: Kate Spade isn’t doing as good as Reebok and Adidas, are you kidding me?

Kristen: Yeah, it’s actually really interesting for transparency, the outer wear and athletic wear companies tended to do pretty well. Kate Spade only got 20% and that put it behind Walmart. Walmart!

Kyla: Whoa. Whoa. That is cutting. Like… Ahhh…

Kristen: So yeah, Walmart had 27%. Primark, which you’ll recognize because you lived in the UK, they had 35%. Lululemon, Canadian athletic wear company, was 41%, and Calvin Klein also had 41%.

Kyla: Wow…

Kristen: So, that’s just to give you a sense of where the brands are at.

Kyla: That’s upsetting I don’t know… but Patagonia was number one, right, at 65%?

Kristen: Adidas, Patagonia, and Reebok all tied at 64%.

Kyla: Oh, OK, good for Adidas and Reebok, seriously. Like, Patagonia’s the company that I associate with being good.

Kristen: Yeah, Patagonia, like, obviously is gonna be on there.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: But I think there were a couple of, like, outdoor brands that I would have expected to do better than they did. I don’t remember, like, Columbia’s exact rating but they were, like, in the middle of the pack somewhere. Sometimes branding and actual practice don’t really go hand in hand, unfortunately.

Kyla: Unless they’re Patagonia, I guess, although 65% is still not great.

Kristen: No, but I mean it’s pretty good, especially considering I think they’ve only been doing this Transparency Index for a few years. So, like, companies have really started to move on this, and it’s not nothing to, like, create company policies to, like, require supplier transparency. To publish lists of your suppliers that is, like, a thing that companies really have to be pushed to wanna do. 64%, it’s definitely not 100%, and we would love all companies to be, like, there, but it’s pretty good. Anyway. Yay Patagonia, gonna keep buying your sweaters. We’re not paid by any companies…

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: I was just gonna say, they’re not sponsoring us but if they want to send me some clothes, I have never been able to afford any Patagonia clothing!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: They’re so cozy…

Kyla: I’m so jealous.

Kristen: OK question seven. This is another NGO index thing. Know the Chain is an NGO that is working to eradicate forced labour in global supply chains. They produce annual reports on three different sectors that they consider being at high risk for forced labour. And those reports essentially evaluate how companies are doing on the issue of forced labour. Their methodology is really complicated, but I can link people to that if they want. My question is this: which of the following companies scored the best, or highest, on Know the Chain’s 2018 information and communications technology benchmark report? So, these are a broad range of, like, information technology, so they could be producing actual electronics, or they could be producing, like, ICT Services. So, I’ll list four and you can pick whichever one you think is gonna be doing the best. So, option A) Amazon, option two er… option B) Intel, option C) Apple, and option D) Nintendo.

Kyla: Ok, I’m gonna put Amazon as dead last and Nintendo is number one.

Kristen: No!

Kyla: No, really? Don’t tell me it’s the reverse!

Kristen: Um, no, they both suck. Intel has the best…

Kyla: Oh no, Nintendo!

Kristen: Yeah, Nintendo, I know from my conflict minerals research, they do not do things.

Kyla: Oh no, oh I like Nintendo!

Kristen: Me too!

Kyla: Oh no, I’m not looking forward to our electronics episode now.

Kristen: No, it’s gonna be a hellscape, as all our episodes are.

Kyla: I used to build, and, like, repair and sell computers, so I feel like I should know these brands ethics better but obviously I don’t. Although, when you said Intel I was like, I bet they do really well, I have a good feeling about intel. But I had a good feeling about Nintendo, so never trust your gut, apparently.

Kristen: So yeah, Intel scored 75 out of 100, which I think put it overall at the top of the list. Apple was next, with 71 out of 100. And amazon was third, with 32 out of 100. And Nintendo was 4th with 25 out of 100.

Kyla: Whoa, Nintendo’s worse than Amazon?

Kristen: So, like, if you included all the 200 companies, Amazon and Nintendo are, like, way down the list. Oh, I’m sorry, they didn’t evaluate 200, they evaluated 40. That is a number that I should correct myself on. But they’re still, like, it’s a fairly substantial number. They looked at, like, a bunch of different categories and the first one was… basically just making, like, commitments and setting up governance processes, which is sort of intuitively seems like the easiest thing to do. And that was the place where companies scored the highest, so they got 55 out of 100 on average in that category. And the lowest average score was in worker voice, so having grievance mechanisms so workers can actually bring forward issues. Which seems like the hardest one, and they only got 15 out of 100 on that. So yeah, Intel topped the list overall with 75 out of 100, but it’s important to note that there is sort of a pack of four companies that had scores above 70, and they are the ones that you typically see in, like, human rights things for electronics companies. So, Intel, HP, Apple, and Hewlett-Packard all got 71 points or higher. And Intel actually improved from its 2016 score, and it overtook HP and Apple, so they weren’t at the top a couple of years ago. So, it’s been recent actions.

Kyla: Oh wow!

Kristen: Yeah!

Kyla: Good job Intel! Shoutout, shoutout! We’re not sponsored, but if you wanna send me a processor, yes please!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Yeah! Maybe I’ll say a few things about the other two industries that they rank as well. So, the average score for the ICT industry was 32 out of 100, which is, like, in the middle of the three industries. The average score for the apparel and footwear industry was slightly higher, at 37 out of 100. And I just wanna give a quick shoutout to Adidas and Lululemon because they crushed it. They got 92 and 89, respectively. That is pretty impressive, I would say.

Kyla: Adidas is killing it on your lists here!

Kristen: Yeah, and, like, Lululemon’s not doing terribly either.

Kyla: No, but Adidas has been, like, at the top. You know, it’s just I’m surprised, I never would’ve pegged Adidas as, like… I dunno I just... I don’t know what I thought about Adidas, but it wasn’t this.

Kristen: Yeah, I wonder whether it’s… cuz in, like, the 90’s there was all this stuff about child labour and shoe products, so… we’ll do an episode on this, but my suspicion is that it’s connected to those kinds of companies receiving that criticism. And how they’ve sort of reacted. Like, that they know these can become really potent consumer campaigns that hurt their business, so they put an effort into having systems and processes in place in a way that maybe some other companies don’t, cuz they don’t have that experience.

Kyla: Oh, that’s so empowering, like, the way I spend my money makes companies change, yay!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: What a positive message!

Kristen: This is a much more optimistic episode –

Kyla: Than what we’ve been recording so far? Yes!

Kristen: OK, I’ll also talk about the food and beverage industry, which is the other industry that they rate. And it is slightly lower, so their average score was 30 out of 100. Not, like, that much different, but slightly lower. Unilever and Kellogg get a small shoutout for being at the top of that list. So, Unilever had 69, and Kellogg had 66. So, they would not be at the top of either of the other lists, but they were at the top of their industry. So, good.

Kyla: Kellogg, really? Kellogg used to be super evil. I don’t remember why. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. But I’m pretty sure…?

Kristen: We did mention, um, like, the Kellogg after whom the company is named in the Vegetarianism episode because he supported eugenics.

Kyla: Oh, ok, yeah. OK I was like there’s something about…

Kristen: Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?

Kyla: Maybe. Also, I feel like I’ve read something about him… you know what, I’ll find it and I’ll link to it.

Kristen: I like it. OK. I also just wanna throw out that a few of the worst performers on forced labour are also meat producers. So, Tyson Foods is the big American chicken company, and they only got 12 points. And then there are two other companies I had not heard of before, but that are also meat producers. Although they don’t only produce meat. So, there’s WH Group Limited that got 0. And Almarai, which is a Saudi dairy and meat company, and it also got 0. So.

Kyla: OK Kristen, stop trying to push your vegetarian agenda on me. I’m already not eating meat for 3 weeks.

Kristen: I’m just saying forced labour in the American chicken industry is a thing, and we should talk about it in the future.

Kyla: Yes please, that sounds like a delightful conversation.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Alright. So, question 8. Divestment, or Disinvestment, is a tool that activists use to create social change. It is basically the act of no longer investing in something, so you could also think about it as something like a financial version of a boycott. Divestment is famously associated with the anti-apartheid movement targeted at South Africa in the 1980’s, but since then it’s become, sort of, a tool that’s been applied to a range of issues. My question is this: the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which is Canada’s public pension, recently divested from which of the following? So, A) fossil fuel producers, B) private prison operators, C) the tobacco industry, and D) gun manufacturers.

Kyla: Whoa they should’ve divested from all of those things!

Kristen: Uh-huh, but only one. And not even on purpose!

Kyla: Oh no, CPP, you make me sad. OK, this is a great question! I have no idea. I’m gonna go ahead and just say that they accidentally divested from tobacco.

Kristen: No! But I actually think that’s probably the best guess if you were just, you know, trying to think what’s the most, like, the least politically sensitive one that the government, like, trying to not create waves could do. Cuz who likes tobacco, basically. Even people that smoke don’t like the tobacco industry!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: OK so what was it then?

Kristen: It was private prison operators. The private prison divestment movement in the United States is gaining steam. Part of that is to do with the fact that private prison operators are also getting contracts for the ICE detention facilities of migrants.

Kyla: Yikes.

Kristen: Yeah, it’s not something that people like. So, this year the CPP quietly divested, and that was what the news article that I read called it, from GEO Group and CoreCivic, which are two companies that hold the majority of contracts to manage the ICE detention facilities. Before they divested, they had had nearly 8 million dollars American in stock in those two companies. So, CPP, the Canada Pension Plan, did not make a public statement on this, and once it was sort of found out from the records, they have denied that ethical considerations prompted the decision. And more generally say that they do not screen decisions based on social, religious, economic, or political criteria.

Kyla: Ooo but they should!

Kristen: Yeah. And this decision also came after pressure from a couple of Canadian civic groups, so… they say it didn’t have anything to do with ethical criteria, but it is hard to know whether that’s true.

Kyla: So wait, so when I get money put into my Canadian Pension Plan, that money is being grown based on the tobacco industry, the gun industry, and the oil industry? So, when I retire, it’s gonna be on the backs of evil?

Kristen: Yeah…

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Or realistically on the backs of the future generations. Ah… hashtag intergenerational war.

Kyla: Oh yeah, also that.

Kristen: But yeah, so CPP still invests in fossil fuels. This is actually interestingly though the one area in which there might be movement because during the election Prime Minister, then and now, Justin Trudeau, pledged to divest from coal, oil, and gas. So, we’ll see whether he fulfils that promise or not, but we may be divesting from fossil fuels in CPP. CPP also… so it does own shares in a couple of gun manufacturers. So, notably the handgun manufacturer Smith and Wesson. And it also owns shares in Ruger and Olen Corp, which is a company that produces ammunition for AR-15s, which are the guns that are involved in most mass shootings, so… great…

Kyla: Okay…

Kristen: Yeah. And also, as of 2018, it had not divested from tobacco companies either, and there hasn’t, I don’t think, been an update on that so… Essentially, yeah, we invest in all of those things. Except private prisons now, so I guess that’s kind of nice.

Kyla: Yeah, I mean if… you know what… Private prisons suck so… sure. That sounds like a positive spin on this.

Kristen: Yeah. And actually, there’s been a big movement to divest from private prisons, and its connection to the, sort of, ICE detention facilities has really been spurring that on. So, in… there are a few high-profile banks that have decided to divest this year. So, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, BNP Paribas, and Fifth Third Bank Corp. They’ve all decided that they’re not going to invest any future investments in private prisons companies. And that is really significant because they represent 72% of total current financing that’s available to private prisons. Alright so that was question 8. Ready for question 9?

Kyla: Yes.

Kristen: OK.

Kyla: Hit me!

Kristen: So, on our first episode of the podcast, we talked about how two thirds of a person’s water footprint comes from the indirect water use of the food that we eat. So, a more general term for the water that’s used to produce a finished product or service is called its virtual water footprint. And according to a calculation by the environmental organization Friends of the Earth in the UK, which of the following products has the highest virtual water footprint? So, A) a pair of leather boots, B) a smartphone, C) a t-shirt, and D) a chocolate bar.

Kyla: OK I’m thinking… leather boots or a smartphone… I’m gonna say… I’m gonna say a smartphone.

Kristen: Ah, you’re so close, it was leather boots!

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: But they were pretty close actually. So those are the top two. I actually just listed this one in order.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: So yeah, leather boots take the most water, it’s about 14,500 litres to produce a pair of leather boots…

Kyla: Why!?

Kristen: [LAUGHS] Uh, like… animal agriculture…

Kyla: Oh my god… ok well obviously we’ll do an episode… there’s so many episodes, we have such a list.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: OK, go on…

Kristen: So, smartphone was pretty similar, so 12,700 litres. A t-shirt was considerably less, but still pretty substantial, so 3900 litres. And then a chocolate bar was 1400 litres. Although I think in their calculations, they do not count the things that any of these things are wrapped in so… y’know. Take that into account. The… interestingly that same study also found that leather boots have the largest land footprint, which if you listen to our… you know what, if you listen to, like, half the episodes that we’ve created so far we talk about that.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kyla: And by “we” Kristen means she talks about it and I react to it because she is the… she does better research than me.

Kristen: I just spend way more time online.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: And it was in basically this same order for land use as well. So. OK, question 10! So, first Kyla, I’m just gonna ask you, have you heard of e-waste before?

Kyla: Yes, but I used to work in the electronics industry, so I feel like I have a cheat code on that one. Let me say what I think it is and then you can correct me. My understanding of e-waste is anything electronic based that we’re just throwing away. Batteries, computers, TVs…

Kristen: Yeah, I think that’s basically my understanding too, and we produce a lot of it. Globally we produce about 50 million tonnes of e-waste every year. And there was a cool study that recently looked at the value, so, how much money the stuff in our e-waste is actually worth. Cuz a lot of it’s, like, rare minerals and gold, right, so it has a value to it. So, if we took that value that the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Economic Forum estimated for our total e-waste, it makes up a pretty substantial amount. And what I wanna know is, if we express that value in terms of a country’s gross domestic product, so the total economy of a country, which of the following countries would be the, sort of, closest comparator, if that makes sense?

Kyla: Oh, ok, so, like, OK so the amount of e-waste equals which country’s GDP basically? OK.

Kristen: Yeah so, the total value of their economy, basically.

Kyla: Wow ok I’m ready.

Kristen: Ok so option A) is Greenland, which has a population of 56,000. Option B) is Malta, which you and I went to…

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: …which has a population of just under 500,000. Option C) is Estonia, which has a population of 1.3 million. And option D) is Croatia, which has a population of 4 million.

Kyla: OK. I feel like this answer’s gonna make me sad, so I’m gonna go ahead and say Croatia.

Kristen: It’s Croatia!

Kyla: Oh no…!

Kristen: Yeah.

Kyla: Ok so, the amount of e-waste that we produce every year, the dollar value of what that’s worth equals Croatia’s GDP, and there’s 4 million people living there.

Kristen: Yeah, actually it’s slightly higher than Croatia’s GDP.

Kyla: Oh my god, no…!

Kristen: Yeah, so the total estimated value of e-waste is 62.5 billion US dollars. It is a lot.

Kyla: Whoa!

Kristen: And Croatia’s GDP is just under 61 billion.

Kyla: Whoa!

Kristen: Yeah. It’s not great.

Kyla: Ah… Ah! So, wait, so how do we… what’s the solution? Just use stuff longer?

Kristen: Yeah, so use stuff longer is the first solution, but the second one is, like, recycle your shit and make your municipalities recycle your shit.

Kyla: Don’t just throw your headphones in the garbage…

Kristen: Yeah. Yeah, no, I know for me anyway, whenever I, like, finish up with a phone or something, like, I just have it in a box somewhere because I don’t know what to do with it, so we’ll definitely have to do an episode on it so I can offload that box somewhere responsibly. But yeah, only about 20% of e-waste is recycled. And it’s valuable! It’s got gold and shit in it!

Kyla: And is it… what… there’s a mineral as well… um… I’m asleep still but… there’s a mineral that’s really rare that has to go in phones. Is it platinum?

Kristen: I don’t know. I do know that there are a few conflict minerals that go in most phones. Tin, tungsten, tantalum. That is research I did 5 years ago, and I still remember them!

Kyla: Oh wow. Well. Wow.

Kristen: Yeah. Anyway.

Kyla: OK.

Kristen: We should talk about e-waste on an episode, but there’s lots of different stuff that goes in phones and that report that lists the total value of e-waste actually also looks at scarcity, and there are a number of minerals that we are at high risk of running out of and… there’s a really easy solution to that!

Kyla: Recycle it! Yikes!

Kristen: Just recycle… yeah.

Kyla: Gosh… I had no idea how little I knew, and I think that I’m pretty well read on this stuff so… I’m really glad we’re doing this podcast now. Even if no one listens, at least you and I will be better people.

[LAUGHTER FROM BOTH]

Kristen: Definitely, I was so surprised when I was doing some of this research, so… I’m glad that, I’m glad that I didn’t give you these questions and you were just, like, “I know all of these, Kristen”.

[MUSIC FADES IN]

Kyla: Oh my gosh. This makes me so excited to continue our podcast project, because we have so many ideas, so many things we wanna learn about. Give us some feedback, let us know what you’d like to hear about, and follow along, like, do our challenges with us! Each episode we’ll try to tell you what the solutions are. We don’t know, but we can tell you what… some solutions are anyways, maybe not THE solutions, but some solutions. We’ll try to make suggestions because you and I are going to live better.

Kristen: Yeah, at the very least sort of, like, practical suggestions for how you might want to think about things. Noting that, like, we’re not going to have the same values that everyone listening is gonna have, and that’s… what makes this world beautiful! Is that we’re all different. That sounded so cheesy…

Kyla: Oh, Kristen that’s so sweet! I think on that note, we’ll end it. If you guys want to reach out to us, please hit us up @pullbackpodcast on Instagram or Twitter. You know, let us know what you’d like to hear and… we’re really excited for this journey. We’re going to be different people in a year hopefully. Bye!

Kristen: Bye!

[MUSIC FADES OUT]

Kristen: Aw, you cut out, I didn’t hear what you said but I’m sure it was… very powerful.

Kyla: Mwah.