Sustainable development is also about honesty: towards production, towards consumption, towards ourselves and others. The concept of ethical consumption arose in opposition to mass consumption and is aimed at establishing transparent relationships between those who create and sell goods, and between those who buy them. This means that producers are responsible for an ethical attitude towards nature, for respect for human rights, for fair working conditions, as well as for waste disposal. For the consumer, ethical consumption is expressed in awareness and awareness of the purchased goods (a T-shirt made on the other side of the world cannot cost like a cup of coffee in a budget cafe; here either the problem is in quality or in infringement of the rights of workers). To maintain such transparency between the seller and the buyer, various public organizations have been established that mediate, control and certify ethically produced goods.
The public movement Fairtrade (from English fair, fair trade), the most famous international community today, aims to provide fair trade conditions for manufacturers, in particular from developing countries, as well as fair working conditions for workers. In addition, Fairtrade monitors the quality of the production of goods and issues the appropriate certification, which for the consumer means quality goods, produced in compliance with the rights of workers and the formation of a fair price.
Individual initiatives and products under the fair label are also known. For example, the creators of Fairphone claim that when creating their new smartphone, all requirements for ethical production were taken into account and employees received decent wages. The price of an ethical smartphone is considerable, the characteristics are decent, but not the most modern – the choice is up to the buyer and his attitude to functionality, quality and the proposed price tag. There are also many examples of fairfashion in the fashion world. It has long been known that popular mass-market clothing brands, which release collections several times a year and sell their products at incredibly low prices, are guilty of using child labor, environmental pollution at the location of factories and an unsafe work process. So, fair fashion cares about the quality of products, about those who produce these products, and those who will wear them (which means, about us in the end). Examples of honest initiatives can be found both from globally renowned and long-standing brands and designers, such as Hugo Boss, Calvin Klein, Vivenne Westwood, and from start-ups, usually small, ethical companies.