Today we live in an incredibly materialistic world, where outfits should never be repeated, children have iPads before they can walk, and shopping is a legitimate hobby.
When we buy a t-shirt from a high street store, we think about the price, the fit, and whether it will go with our other clothes. We don't think about the underpaid factory workers who made it, the rainforests chopped down to grow the material, the toxic waste produced in the dyeing process, or the clothes that we'll discard to landfill to make room in our wardrobes.
If you do want to consider those things, it takes a lot of time and effort to research, to get past what brands say their values are and into what their actions and supply chains actually look like in reality - and a lot of the time that information can't be found, where brands outsource work to such an extent that they don't even know who their own suppliers are.
We were fed up with that picture. It shouldn't be down to the consumer to have to research every company they want to buy from; we should be able to trust that our money is going towards doing good. We wanted to shop less, but be able to make better decisions when we did, to move away from the throwaway society of fast fashion, materialism, and piles of waste, and towards a more conscious model of consumerism. We wanted our hard-earned money to support brands whose values lay in ethics, sustainability, and lasting quality, rather than growth and profit by whatever means necessary.
So we started making a list of all the brands we'd heard of that matched that criteria, to help us make better consumer choices, and spend well. And now that list has turned into Well-spent, so that we can help other people to do the same too.
Well-spent is a directory of brands that are having a positive impact on the world. Maybe they're working to develop eco-friendly alternatives, such as Yuhme's reusable water bottle made from biodegradable sugarcane, as an alternative to plastic. Maybe they're completely transparent about their supply chain, such as Know The Origin who worked incredibly hard to source factories who meet their values, and have openly documented it all on their website. Or maybe they're reducing food waste by getting people to share food they aren't going to eat with their neighbours instead of the rubbish bin.
Have a browse, get to know your favourite new brands, and bookmark our page so that next time you need to buy something, you can spend well too.