Beagle button browser extension for sustainable ethical shopping

Filed in Blog by on September 3, 2020 0 Comments
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Choosing what to buy when you’re living a sustainable lifestyle can be confusing or overwhelming. And when that happens, we don’t always make the best choices. We fall pretty to analysis paralysis, or worse still – green washing – and just end up reaching for the same item that we’ve always bought.

I’ve thought for a long time that it would be great to have a magic fairy on hand to tell me the best option to buy. If I care about waste and recycling, are there better products than the ones I currently use? If I abhor sweatshop labour, where should I buy my clothes from? And what types of pollution do every day products create at large in the environment?

Well there might not be a magic fairy coming my way soon, but a rather cute beagle is here to help us sniff out more ethical options.

Beagle Button Browser Extension

The Beagle Button is the brainchild of Tara, CEO of Buy Me Once. The idea is that you shop as usual online – after installing the Beagle Button browser extension – and if there’s a more ethical or sustainable choice on hand, it pops up and gives you the option to buy that instead.

So if you care about sweat shops, climate change and pollution, but don’t know which products to buy, the Beagle Button takes all that guess work away.

Here’s how it works:

  • Sign up to Beagle Button for free at joinbeagle.com
  • Select which criteria are important to you – such as organic, plastic free, vegan etc
  • The beagle button will appear on your browser and you can continue to shop as normal online
  • If there’s a better alternative to the one you’re looking at, they will pop up on your screen, allowing you to make a better purchase in an instant.

Sustainability Values

While I am sympathetic to nearly all aspects of sustainable living, I try to keep a tight focus on reducing waste on this site. Tara outlines the sustainability values on her site and I was heartened to see waste and recycling at the top. The Beagle Button will identify brands that reduce and reuse, have strong recycling initiatives and offer rental services. And it’s great to see more and more brands listening to their consumers. According to the Beagle Button blog, recent research shows 62% of consumers are attracted to brands that reduce plastic use and that 46% will pay more for products made from recycled or waste materials. So it’s great that instead of having to spend hours finding the brands that are doing this, your friendly Beagle Button will just sniff out these brands for you!

Suggest ethical brands

This app is in its infancy, but it shows big promise. Tara’s mission, along with her trusty beagle, is to make sustainable shopping easy. What’s not to love?! To encourage people to spread the word she’s planting 5 trees for every person referred through their customer referral programme. Tara also needs your help in shaping the Beagle Button to be even more helpful in the future. Currently in beta-mode Tara is calling on all eco warriors (that’d be you!) to test it out, provide feedback and recommend other ethical suppliers.

I’d love to know how you find brands that help you shop ethically and sustainably – does it take you ages to do research? Are you worried about greenwashing?

About the Author ()

I am a long time supporter of the Green and Sustainable lifestyle. After being caught in the Boscastle floods in 2004, our family begun a journey to respect and promote the importance of Earth's fragile ecosystem, that focussed on reducing waste. Inspired by the beauty and resourcefulness of this wonderful planet, I have published numerous magazine articles on green issues and the author of four books.

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