TIL that Proctor & Gamble and Unilever actively sponsor Russian war efforts and are on the International Sponsors of War list.
They own brands such as Pampers, Olay, Old Spice, Pantene, Oral B, Herbal Essences, Gilette, Dove, Hellmann’s, Axe, Knorr, Magnum, Breyers, and Lipton, among others.
The international sponsor list is a list by Ukranian government, for all the companies that are doing business in Russia. Totally understandable move from their side of course. By actively sponsoring war effort, I think they are refering to the fact that they are paying taxes.
The title and the article is a bit misleading in some sense.
No, it’s not just the taxes, though that’s obviously a component of it. A quick google search will lead you to find that they are obligated by law to directly contribute to Russia’s military efforts by registering its draft-eligible staff, turning over information relevant to the war, assisting in the delivery of military equipment, and providing physical infrastructure, among other things.
Ukrainian or not, this isn’t just “oh well you’re kind of indirectly supporting the war by funding the government”. It is a very direct form of involvement.
Can you give me an article, because I could not find anything googling, maybe I didn’t put the right search terms. I found a website under the domain boycottrussia.info, but a website like this I can hardly consider objective. Keep in mind there is a lot of disinformation on the internet, and one should be careful using references from both the Russian and Ukranian governments and their allies.
Applying the same standard, should we boycott also all companies having business in Saudi Arabia, USA, and other countries that are involved in war efforts?
The problem being, the other companies that could provide an alternative to their products are about as harmful (Nestlé, Mondelez, Johnson and Johnson, etcetera). At this point, we should start learning how to grow our own food and make our own soap
Farmers markets usually have good stuff, my only issue with that is the price is like double… might be an incentive to be a bit more frugal too I guess, but it‘s hard to save much on food or hygiene products for me.
These are pretty common products. There are tons of ethical alternatives, in fact personal care items are among the easiest and cheapest products to find ethical alternatives for and a good starting point if you want to develop more ethical consumption habits. You don’t need to make your own soap in order to avoid sponsoring genocide.
I like Rocky mountain soap co for bars of soap. Their aloe soap fixed my dry hands after one use when I was overwashing them early on in the pandemic.
I use a lush shampoo bar, though tbh I don’t know if the company’s ownership is any better. I’m assuming they are but don’t have anything other than their own material to back that up.
Frankly that’s an excuse, and a lazy one at that. Ethical products are widely available outside of the US, and I say this as a digital nomad who has lived on three continents and lived in the US for less than a year in total. If the inconvenience is unbearable for you then that’s your prerogative, but don’t try to justify it by saying things that simply aren’t true and thereby discouraging others.
also a crap excuse… P&G don’t make cheap products; they make brand name products… plenty of home brand stuff is cheap, and doesn’t actively support russias genocide
there are other discussions to be had about environmental impact, pay gap, etc but that’s not what we’re discussing
I'm referring to ones that are made by non-controversial companies. It's difficult to find products that aren't made by the same companies just under a different name. Finding ethical alternatives isn't as simple as "don't buy P&G", and isn't cheap either
there are (at least) 2 things that boycotts are meant to do:
directly deny funding to the company which will pass that onto “causes” you disagree with
make a statement that you and others disagree with decisions the company is making
in the first point, switching to a different brand produced by the same company clearly does nothing unless the at product has a lower margin (which isn’t even unlikely either: plenty of brands do the “budget”, “midrange”, “luxury” brand concept and budget is where they make their least overhead)
on the second however, that’s where you can maybe make a difference… if a company starts to see market share dip in their big name products, that’s problematic for them even if people are switching to other products in their line that are less well known, because it shows that people have more negative attitudes to their brands
Can you provide some links so we have a starting point? Simply googling Ethical Shampoo is going to bring about a disheartening and probably half fake onslaught of results that would be nearly impossible to sort through.
I’ll start: avoid Hellman’s easily by making your own mayo. If the eggs squick you out, or you just want bonus points, I use this vegan garlic mayo recipe. It keeps for weeks and I don’t miss mayo at all. This requires a blender - any kind is fine.
Soap: someone near you makes bars of this that are better quality and sells them for roughly $5, I guarantee it. If not, making it is pretty straightforward as long as you follow instructions carefully and use established recipes. If you want to go custom, you can also use a lye calculator. This one requires an immersion blender.
Breyer’s/ice cream in general: Get yourself some xanthan gum for regular dairy, and add soy lecithin to your list if you want to do vegan ice creams. The xanthan gum inhibits ice crystals for a smooth and creamy texture, and helps with scoopability. Soy lecithin helps emulsify oil and water, so you can use it to bring up the fat content of soy or oat bases to be closer to a heavy cream. Requires a blender.
Gillette: get a safety razor. Mine’s a vintage lady Gillette I got off eBay. You will save so much money on blades it’s not even funny.
Lipton: your local grocery store might have loose leaf tea in the bulk section. If so, try that first. If not, check out Arbor Teas instead. Small business, fair trade, high quality stuff, and the packaging is completely compostable, making it an awesome zero waste choice.
Not saying you are wrong in your recommendations, but I also use safety razors and almost all razor blades are produced by manufacturers bought by P&G any way :(
Well, at least it’s less money. Thank you for the heads up :) Honestly, I’d give up shaving if I could stand it, but I’ve tried and can’t stand the physical feeling of hairy legs.
I’ve actually got quite a bit of these sort of recommendations that I think I’m going to compile into something easier to navigate based on what you don’t want to support - but feel free to share a link to this comment in the meantime!
There have been a few excellent videos by ‘Real Reporter’ on YT about this topic too. Many of the companies that supposedly stopped trading in Russia simply started selling products through an intermediary and continued supply in the same stores. Capitalism and corporate greed is terrible.
That’s crazy to me because it’s SO preventable. I worked in the financial sector, and sanctions completely shut that sector out of a bunch of countries.
This is a governmental failure as well as corporate ethics failure in my book. It should be common use of American soft power to just entirely shut countries out of our sphere.
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