How to Use Your Wallet to Make a Better World

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Terri Lyon

The Activist for Activists. Author of Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism and The Happy Activist: Journey the 5-Step Activism Path to Focus Your Passion and Change the World. Teacher, Psychologist, Environmental Activist, Animal Lover.

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Last Updated on August 21, 2025

Did you know your wallet has power? You can be a consumer activist every time you consider a purchase. From choosing not to buy to understanding how companies create their goods and services, your purchasing decisions can make the world a better place.

Keep Your Wallet Closed

Reducing your consumption of goods and services starts with understanding your needs and wants. A movement called voluntary simplicity focuses on changing our thinking about what we need to be happy. Spoiler alert: new cars and a closetful of clothes are not the keys to happiness. Instead, it is more about living deeply and consciously. You understand the impact of your choices. If you want a new car and you know the tradeoffs of the purchase, then you are living deliberately.

Sometimes the best way to voluntary simplicity is in the choice not to purchase at all. Examples include wearing your clothes longer before sending them to the landfill. Start a kitchen garden. Repair your car instead of buying a new one.

My post How to Be a Savvy Consumer includes questions to ask yourself before you make a significant purchase. Think about whether you can borrow or just make do. To create a better world, put your wallet back in your pocket.

Consider the Source Before You Open Your Wallet

Most of us cannot live entirely off the grid, so consuming goods and services is inevitable. But you can help the world become a better place with the way you purchase products. Make your purchase a moral choice by considering the common good. For example, buy your produce at the farmer’s market instead of the grocery store to support your local community, help farmers, and reduce your carbon footprint.

Take Your Wallet to a Cooperative

Rather than giving your money to shareholders, consider purchasing through a nonprofit cooperative. For example, many communities have grocery co-ops, where group buying and volunteer direction mean lower prices and distribution of profits to the members.

Cooperatives establish a charter that defines how they will operate, including values in decisions about sourcing and marketing the product. More intangible benefits include a sense of local community and ownership.

Read more about credit unions – a financial cooperative – in What is a Credit Union and How Can it Help Me?

My favorite funny, quirky blogger Ellen Hawley recently posted about Early British Consumer Co-ops.

Choose For-Profit Companies That Make the World a Better Place

Organizational leaders set a moral tone. The goals they choose might range from a strong profit motive to sustainability in everything they do. Ethical leaders pay attention to more than just profit by also considering other stakeholders such as employees and the local community. They are trustworthy in the way they deal with people. They make the local community a better place through donations and volunteering.

On its face, the profit motive is not wrong because companies exist to make a profit. But profit can be achieved in different ways. Paying employees less, taking safety shortcuts, and violating environmental rules may lead to higher gains. But companies that believe in sustainability also make a profit, while treating employees well and caring for the environment. Research has shown that corporate social responsibility contributes to better financial performance. Treating employees well can lead to less turnover. Strong attention to safety can reduce costs.

A Safety Value Changes an Organization

Understand how business leaders communicate their values. Many live their values quietly, mainly communicating them within the organization. Years ago, I worked for ALCOA when Paul O’Neill became CEO. O’Neill believed ALCOA could be a safer place, despite the harsh manufacturing conditions that included working around molten metal. Safety was a value that everyone could get behind, and attention to safety permeated all processes. By the time O’Neill retired, ALCOA had radically reduced the injury rate.

“And at Alcoa, O’Neill’s legacy lives on. Even in his absence, the injury rate has continued to decline. In 2010, 82 percent of Alcoa locations didn’t lose one employee day due to injury, close to an all-time high. On average, workers are more likely to get injured at a software company, animating cartoons for movie studios, or doing taxes as an accountant than handling molten aluminum at Alcoa.” Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

The safety orientation I learned at ALCOA is still with me today, even though I worked in an office rather than on the factory floor. I won’t pass by someone who is using a ladder without ensuring they take proper precautions. I secure cords stretched across walkways and pick up spilled ice. Because of one leader’s value for safety, people are safer.

A Philanthropy Value Helps Those in Need

Other leaders drive the pursuit of values by declaring them publicly. Blake Mycoskie founded the shoe company TOMS with a mission to help those in need. For every pair of shoes they sell, they would give away one to someone less fortunate. That mission has expanded to eyeglasses, safe water, and maternal support kits.

Exercise Your Consumer Power

Considering how others manufacture the products you buy is a form of activism. Knowing how the manufacturer or provider lives their values means you can choose one that meets your moral standards. More consumers are choosing the power of the wallet.

“Another new reality is that these untrusting consumers now look to brands to join them in the business of making the world better. More and more, purchasers expect to see businesses put their values on display and do more than simply sell products and pursue profits. Remaining silent on the sidelines is less and less of an option, as silence can be viewed as complicity, a social/political statement in itself.” – Peter Horst, Forbes

I’m still learning how to understand the ways companies live their values. Read my post about values and sustainability in the fiber industry in How To Choose Cruelty-Free Yarn.

Boycott

Boycotting means not purchasing products or services from a company that violates moral principles vital to you. Almost 2/3 of Americans took part in a boycott in 2019.

Grab Your Wallet was born in reaction to Trump’s Access Hollywood tape. The founders provide information about companies that support Trump so consumers can avoid their products and services.

Ethical Consumer, a UK company, provides a similar service but with a broad array of issues. Access to detailed information about companies and their practices is only available to paying subscribers.

Buycott

Buycotting means purchasing products or services from a company that adheres to moral principles vital to you.

“We have also seen that consumers are increasingly buying from companies they support. According to Weber Shandwick’s research, The Company behind the Brand: In Goodness We Trust, 46% of global consumers are increasingly buying from companies or brands that make them feel happy and good, and 30% are increasingly buying from companies that have a social purpose or strive to make a positive contribution to the world or market they operate in.” – Weber Shandwick, Battle of the Wallets

Ethisphere awards ethical companies each year, measuring a company’s “(i) Ethics and Compliance Program, (ii) Culture of Ethics, (iii) Corporate Citizenship and Responsibility, (iii) Governance, and (iv) Leadership and Reputation.” They note that these companies tend to outperform similar companies without the same ethical standards.

I love this quote from a buycotter:

“The brand I’m thinking about considers the welfare of its workers and contributors most of whom are already below the poverty level and has evidenced by its constructing of schools and healthcare facilities which the community workforce can [use]… So my supporting and seeking out the brand and encouraging others to do so is what I consider my small contribution to the cause.”

Your Wallet has Power

You have many ways to be a consumer activist. Don’t purchase goods and services if you can avoid it. Boycott those companies that violate your ethical standards. And support companies that share your values.

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