A note on Black Friday and the buying season
Sustainability editor Flora Dickie explores how to sustainably buy and how to resist the temptation of cut price offers
If you are excited about Black Friday, or Cyber Monday or whatever term they use these days, I want you to first question why. When you are bombarded with emails from brands, advertisements on social media and voucher codes in the post I want you to remember some things:
Most brands literally don’t care about you or their workers – they just want your money
If their advertising is making you feel bad – do you think you need that product, or do they need you?
Does this brand need me to buy even more from them – at the time of year when they sell the most?
They are probably appropriating Freudian ideas to manipulate you into buying more than you need
This is not the most wonderful time of the year for the most vulnerable
You may think that it is important to support to economy but why when capitalism has failed to save the us from the pandemic
The gap between the richest and poorest has increased
The wealth of billionaires rose by nearly a third during the pandemic whilst unemployment rates rose
We are prepared for war but not the pandemic
Fast fashion is second most polluting industry on earth and many brands can- not assure that they pay workers a living wage * see H&M*
If you need to buy something why don’t you buy that item locally, by some- one in your community?
Not everyone can afford to buy the most ‘sustainable’ or ‘ethical’ items so we cannot and will not shame them for it – it is the system that is the problem
