Ethics

Food and ethics are intimately connected. Whether you’re a food producer, business, consumer or policy-maker, decisions about food involve consideration of the health and welfare of our planet, people and animals.

Ethics refers to the values, principles and codes by which people live. Acting ethically means taking values seriously and asking ‘what should I do, all things considered?’

Advice on making better decisions based on ethical principles include: working out the winners and losers, asking who benefits most from your decision, being clear and open about your principles, and understanding the benefits of talking difficult decisions through.

The Ethical Matrix, developed by Food Ethics Council member Professor Ben Mepham, is a tool to help with making ethical decisions. At its simplest, the Ethical Matrix is a checklist of concerns, structured around established ethical theory. It is based on three ethical principles, respect for wellbeing, autonomy and justice.

The principles of ethical decision-making are relevant to everyone who makes choices about food, from where a supermarket sources its green beans to what you’re going to eat for dinner tonight.

Key Priorities

For Businesses

• Consider whether your customers would still eat your food if they knew where it came from.
• Value all your stakeholders, and consider anything that matters in its own right- a farm animal or even an ecosystem- as a stakeholder.
• Use the Ethical Matrix as a framework to work through difficult decisions.

For Consumers

• When buying food, go for unpackaged, locally bought, and as and when you need it.
• Eat organic, fairly traded fruit and vegetables, and less but better quality meat and dairy and sustainably caught fish.