Q2 What are the positive and negative effects that may have on the economic and social development of your home country?
Ethical is buying things that are made ethically. In my opinion, this means consumerism without harm to or exploitation of humans, animals or the natural environment.Ethical consumption may have both positive and negative effects on the economic and social development of my home country, China. However, I think there are more positive effects than the negative ones. Awareness of global poverty ,animal welfare and green issues are at an all time high. Ethical consumption helps the people in my home country to carry this awareness into our shopping basket, and make our home a more clean,environmental friendly and a better place and helps “to engage the public,and to support behavior change towards more sustainable consumption (Smithers, R., & Hickman., L. ,2006 ). Ethical consumption means people will favour particular ethical products, such as those that are energy saving, cruelty free, organic, or climate change resistant products.These are also called positive buying. First ,energy savings would be a positive effect of ethical consumption. China is a big country with a lot of resources but not so much if those resources are divided by the population number,so energy-saving is a very important issue.If people can buy the ethical products such as energy saving light bulbs,even if one only, and save 1 degree of electricity, when we multiply that by the population, this will be a great amount of energy saved! Second,China is a country with various kinds of living species including some rare and endangered species such as panda ,White tiger and Hua Nan tiger.Some people who are blinded by interests will just kill those animals and sell their products to make money.If we call can encourage each other to by ethical products especially the cruelty free,the species might be saved.The saved species has many research values which are far beyond money and interests. The research value will not only benefits China but also the whole world! Third,as the living standard in China is developing very fast,Chinese people nowadays are no longer only consider about how to solve food problem but food safety and nutrition problem.If people can buy the ethical products especially the organic products,they can eat more safely and healthily since organic foods are produced according to certain production standards.Take crops as example,it means they were grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.These will improve Chinese people’s health on a large scale. Last ,as the NCC chairman,Lord Whitty once said. “ We call need to understand that food is the typical household’s number-one contributor to climate change.” .(Smithers, R., & Hickman., L. ,2006 ).If more and more people are consuming the ethical products,it will promote the.In many places of China,the climate is not so good for the plants to grow,if we can develop the growing of climate change resistant products,using the limit arable land,China can provide food to more of its people. There are also bad effects. One of which is it may not be so acceptable when ethical products first come into the market. “Price was an issue for most shoppers,with many people on limited budgets wanting a greener choice.” .(Smithers, R., & Hickman., L. ,2006 ).Since most of the ethical products are quite expensive,many people may refuse to buy at first. Just like religion, ethics aren't universal.However,we should also have the hope that as time goes by,more and more people will see the advantages of ethical consumption and ignore the negative ones and ethical consumption will benefit more and more people.