Past ANPED Activity

ANPED was involved in a joint project from various consumer organisations in Europe. These organisations all have experience in publishing reports and/or books on so-called 'green and ethical consumption'. As various consumer organisations work on the same issues and as they research the same products and companies, they decided co-operation is needed. This has first been done by themselves by setting up a specific network. ANPED joined the effort by co-ordinating and supporting a joint project to harmonise criteria for company assesment and to produce a joint publication assessing different products on their ethical and green performance. Regretfully however, this project has been stopped early 2002, due to a lack of funding. The information below is therefore outdated, but can still be usefull.

For an example of a consumer guide, it is possible to download here the English translation of the guide that was produced by the Dutch Alternative Consumers Association (Alternatieve Konsumentenbond): Shopping Fair and Green. A consumer guide on sustainable consumption and production.

Background and Goals of the Project

Past Activities

• 'Consumer-guides' have been published.
  Last September, The Alternatieve Konsumenten Bond (Alternative Consumers Association) from the Netherlands, together with OIVO/CRIOC from Belgium, published a 'honest and fair shopping guide'. Until now 2000 copies are sold in the Netherlands and 1500 in Flanders. In Germany IMUG has published several guides called 'Unternehmenstester' that sold about 8000 copies per issue. In Great Britain Ethical Consumer publishes their magazine on a regular basis. These publications inform consumers about the ethics and environmental consequences involved when buying products.
• organisations with expertise on the production of "green and ethical" Consumer-guides joined forces. All these organisations, along with NGOs in Sweden and Ireland have shown interest. Co-ordination was undertaken by ANPED

Participating Organisations

• Alternatieve Konsumentenbond (Alternative Consumers Association) from The Netherlands
• OIVO/CRIOC from Belgium
• Ethical Consumer from the United Kingdom
• EarthWatch from Ireland
• Die Verbraucher Initiative from Germany
• IMUG from Germany
• Konsumenter I Samverkan from Sweden