SUPPORT POSITIVE BUYING

Positive buying is favoring ethical products, be they fair trade, cruelty free, organic, recycled, re-used, or produced locally. At Indochine Natural we have bundled a few of these elements into one product- our Eco-friendly Household General Cleaning Liquid.

It is made in Penang (produced locally) by a group of intellectually disabled we have trained (Fair Trade) and made from recycled cooking oil they collect from Halal restaurants (recycled).

Our intellectually disabled partners produce the base for us, and at Indochine Natural we add the fragrance, package, label and distribute.

THE GOOD NEWS: Our intellectually disabled partners earn 20% of the retail price, and this goes directly towards helping these folk on their journey towards economic and social independence.

If you are in Malaysia, available from all JustLife stores, or the Indochine Natural online shop if you are in Malaysia or Europe.

For other countries email us and we will arrange to ship it to you. 

 

THAT GREEN & ETHICAL PRODUCT YOU BUY MAY NOT BE WHAT IT SEEMS

At Indochine  Natural where we strive to produce all-natural ethical products under Fair Trade (WFTO) conditions, we often wonder if the average consumer is aware of an interesting trend in recent years....a number of iconic green and natural product companies have been bought out by large multinationals. For example, Clorox (they manufacture bleach and other chemical products) purchased the privately owned Burt’s Bees (handmade natural soap etc). Then there was the purchase of Body Shop by L'oreal, and other examples include the sale of Rachel's Organic and Tom's of Maine which was purchased by Colgate-Palmolive for $100 million. All of these started as small companies selling natural products, much the same as our company Indochine Natural.

The BIG question of course is whether these companies can keep their ethical principles after being absorbed into corporations not sharing the same set of values?

It seems the answer is NO!!! The Ethical Consumer magazine in the USA rates companies and their products on their ethical credentials. They have dropped Body Shop's rating from 11 (out of 20) to 2.5 since the sell-out. Tom's of Maine has fallen from 16 to just 5 because of Colgate-Palmolive's poor reputation.

These purchases are a big win these large multinationals because they are buying a ready-made package of values and history of trust.

Many consumers don't know who owns their favourite brands ethical brands, and others just don't care.

Should we be concerned? The profits that Colgate earns from Tom's of Maine, or that Clorox earns from Burt’s Bees, are being poured directly into companies with reputations for ecologically unsound products and practices. If this is of concern, then the answer is obviously yes.