ABSTRACT
Consumer organizations have an opportunity to help create a framework that facilitates consumer action in accordance with their values and long-term interests. This chapter considers the concerned citizens alternatives to ethical consumption to pressure corporations or their own or other governments to undertake action. It also explores current scope and significance of ethical consumption. The chapter explains both the reasons for the implications of the disjuncture and then suggests ways consumers expressed desire to consume ethically can be more frequently realized. It also discusses the role of consumer organizations in promoting fair trade through both ethical consumption and political action. The most important of these are the scarcity of trusted and accurate information concerning ethical issues and the social dimensions of products, and low levels of consumer confidence in transparency of ethical claims. Citizen action might thus be directed at a domestic government to advocate higher labour standards through bilateral or multilateral agreements or to improve compliance with existing standards.
