Ellen Gustafson Quotes

My work is all about how we consume. To me it's important to know where things come from. Generally, our products today are so cheap, you know there's something wrong. Things are not made in a good way. I want to make things that are. I want to make the story behind products visible.

I don't want anything that I buy to have done any harm to anyone or anything.

Buy your fair-trade coffee beans by all means, but don't assume fair-trade principles govern the conditions of the men who fetch it to you. You would be mistaken.

People do care where their food, or other goods, comes from, not merely if the price is right. And that means no business can afford to ignore the impacts their buying practices have on producers and on the perceptions and choices of consumers.

It's quite amazing to me, as I walk around a supermarket or a health food shop, to observe the number of Fairtrade choices: not just staples such as coffee, tea, fresh fruits and rice, but cocoa and chocolate, herbs and spices, honey, ice cream, and jams.

Customers want good value, but they care more than ever how food and clothing products are made.

I always believe in buying things locally; anything locally made is a big plus, along with organic materials. I try really hard to do that, and brands really pop out to me if I know they're trying to be environmentally friendly.

I'm into fashion and design and clothing, but I'm not into supporting brands if I don't know what their message is, and how the people that work for them are treated.

Consumers need more insight into the goods and services they purchase. Businesses need to produce those goods and services more sustainably.

I don't want to buy something that has harmed anyone. This is my absolutely strongest belief, and I believe other people think this, too. Or if they don't now, they will.

Every single person who has ever walked down the street with a FEED bag has purchased it. I think that's really relevant because it means that you have got to make that choice to spend that money on that product.

There are signs, I think, that people aren't satisfied by consumerism: that people resent the fact that the most moral decision in their lives is choosing what colour their next car will be.

Consider what kind of car you get. Buy cars and other products that have the least impact environmentally.

Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice.

More and more surveys in the US are indicating a change in values taking place among consumers, who become more concerned about quality of life, food, health and the environment.

As consumers and as voters we can say 'no' to rogue economics and demand regulation.

Making choices that improve things for all of us on the planet is an act of compassion, a simple act we can do any time we go shopping.

It's all about fair trade, and helping people eating locally grown stuff. We're recycling everything. We're trying to tour in the most conscious way possible, environmentally and socially.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.

Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles.

It's amazing people get so detached from what they eat and what they wear. No one has any contact with how things are made that are put in their body and put in their mouths and I just find it alarming that no one questions it.

As consumers, we are making choices, and we allow things to exist, and we celebrate the existence of things. And we can also boycott those things we don't want to be part of.

Conscious luxury is the wave of the future because everyone should be aware of what they put on their bodies just like they are aware of what they consume.

Buy locally where possible, but if you can't get the very best locally, don't buy locally. Buy it from where it is best.

I just realized at least what I was doing was making a lot of stuff that nobody needed and pushing a consumerist society. So I went to do something else.