Increasingly, consumers are demanding more from the brands that make our products. It’s not just quality and value that we want, but also a brand that safeguards its employees, treats the planet well, and tries to make the world better. When you’re shopping online, a few extensions can help you identify such brands while also offering a chance to let your online shopping help a few people in the world.
Neutral also offers two ways to offset your carbon footprint for that purchase. The first option is to load a prepaid wallet on Neutral with some cash and offset your carbon by donating. Then, neutral will use that money towards green projects.
The other option is to do one of Neutral’s suggested eco-friendly activities. For example, to offset 29 kg of CO2, it’ll suggest skipping meat and dairy for eight days or doing 15 loads of laundry with cold water. You can take up any challenge, and once you activate it, Neutral will track your task.
At any point, the dashboard shows your total carbon emissions through shopping, the amount you’ve offset, and your net emissions.
Download: Neutral for Chrome | Firefox (Free)
2. TreeClicks (Chrome, Firefox): Plant Trees Through Your Online Shopping
TreeClicks is a simple idea that makes a big impact. This extension plants trees as you keep shopping online.
The best part is, there’s no reason for you not to use TreeClicks. It doesn’t change your shopping experience in any way or make things costlier. And as you go along with your regular shopping, you help the environment by planting more trees. It’s one of the best eco-friendly apps out there.
Download: TreeClicks for Chrome | Firefox (Free)
3. Altruisto (Chrome, Firefox): Support Different Charities Through Online Shopping
Like TreeClicks, Altruisto is an invisible app that makes an impact while you continue shopping online like you always do. When you visit one of its partner stores, you will be prompted to activate a donation. After that, when you buy something, the store pays Altruisto a portion of the sale (usually about 2-6%). Your price remains unaffected throughout.
Altruisto then forwards that money to a charitable cause of your choosing. Currently, you can choose to help battle extreme poverty, animal suffering, global water crisis, malaria, or COVID-19. All chosen charities are vetted by GiveWell or Animal Charity Evaluators.
Download: Altruisto for Chrome | Firefox (Free)
4. Ethicli (Chrome, Firefox): Check an Online Store’s Ethical Rating
In real life, you have stores you want to support and stores you don’t because of their ethical values. It’s a little more difficult to figure this out online, but Ethicli is trying to make that easy by giving online stores a rating based on how they conduct their business.
Ethicli employs a data-driven algorithm based on companies’ certifications and partnership data from BCorp and BlueSign. It then breaks this into scores for four criteria: environmental impact, animal treatment, labor rights, and social impact. The browser extension shows a quick rating on each criterion and an overall score, while you can click it to read the details and reasons behind each rating in a new tab.
If an online store has a low Ethicli rating, you’ll also see suggestions for alternative stores from the Ethicli extension. It’s a pretty simple way to be a more conscious online shopper.
Download: Ethicli for Chrome | Firefox (Free)
5. DoneGood (Web, Chrome): Find Eco-Friendly, Ethical, Long-Lasting Products
Each brand or product on DoneGood is vetted to pass a “social impact criteria.” “To us, “good for people” means empowering workers, paying fair wages free of trafficking or child labor and unsafe working conditions. ‘Good for the planet’ means using eco-friendly production processes, using non-toxic, organic, and/or recycled or upcycled materials, and taking other significant steps to keep our land, air, and water clean,” explains DoneGood.
Download: DoneGood for Chrome (Free)
Don’t Forget to Support Local Stores
All of these extensions will help you be a more conscious shopper online and make the world a better place while at it. But meanwhile, don’t forget to support your local stores, especially retail outlets.
