Black Friday: Can We Ethically Participate in a Consumer Holiday?
The season between November and January, referred to by many as “the holidays,” holds many cultural and national holiday celebrations. Despite every holiday-themed movie reminding us that this season is about love and family, the U.S. holiday season is also known to be the busiest shopping season of the year. This consumer-fest kicks off with the arrival of Black Friday near the end of November.
At its core, Black Friday goes against everything we believe in at Sustainable Baddie. The event promotes overconsumption, reckless spending, and irresponsible production by brands and companies. Every year, this event of frenzied consumerism generates over 5 billion pounds of waste. In the past, Amazon workers have staged strikes over the low pay and unethical work hours demanded by the influx of orders on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
However, we believe that there are ways to ethically participate in Black Friday, which, yes, glorifies capitalism and consumer culture, but also offers an opportunity to consciously purchase necessities or gifts for loved ones. We also recognize that this is the only time of year when many of us can afford to splurge on a bigger-ticket item or a rare luxury, and we don’t think anyone should feel guilty about that.
End-of-year consumer holidays can also be a great opportunity to support local businesses, independent artists, or slow-production brands. Black Friday and other retail holidays can be practical moments for shoppers and businesses alike, as long as both parties go into the season with a sustainable mindset.
A few ways you can work to consciously and ethically participate are to:
Shop small businesses
Not support unethical brands with a history of worker or land exploitation
Buy less
Work with what you have
Shop in-store whenever possible to lower shipping waste
For business owners, use low-waste or no-waste packaging
Check out our guide to Black Friday/Cyber Monday for tips on having a more sustainable shopping season
The holidays can be about love and showing appreciation for our family and friends if we do the work to make them less about consumption and material things. Let’s prove the corny holiday movies right and move toward a simpler, sustainably-minded holiday season ♥️
What do you think about Black Friday? Do you think we can participate ethically?