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“At least do us no harm”, says founder of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Omar Barghouti. Part of what he means by this is for everyone to stop making purchases from or investing in companies that actively support Palestinian human rights abuses.
But even if we switch to a brand that isn’t complicit in apartheid, it may be complicit in other types of harm to people, the planet, and other animals.
For this article, we've used recommendations from our ethical shopping guides to enable people to find alternatives to boycotted brands that are a little, or a lot, more ethical than competitors in their sector. For our guides we analyse company performance against issues such as climate, workers’ rights, animal rights, tax conduct, excessive directors’ pay and more.
The boycotted brands we’ve found alternatives to – and why
We chose 20 boycotted brands to find alternatives to, but there are dozens more that could have been explored.
The leading authority on brands to boycott in support of Palestine are those led by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee, otherwise known as the BNC. The BNC is a coalition of Palestinian organisations which since 2005 has led impactful boycott campaigns against complicit brands, and it sits at the centre of the global BDS movement.
We prioritised providing alternatives to brands that:
- the BNC is targeting
- are relevant to UK-based consumers
- operate in sectors we have researched for shopping guides at Ethical Consumer.
Brands that support Palestine
It's rare for big brands to actively support Palestine. Brands that support Palestine vocally are more likely to be small companies. If you want to support businesses that have a strong stance in support of Palestine, you could buy from Zaytoun or Palestine Solidarity Campaign shop.
In this article, some of the alternative brands we suggest might still be connected to Israeli apartheid in some way, and it's rare for any big brand to have no links at all to Israel. But all of these alternative brands are less complicit in Palestinian human rights abuses than the brands facing boycott calls, and none are being targetted by Palestinian human rights campaigners.
Best Buy brands, recommended and the ‘best of a bad lot’
Secondhand or refurbished buys are nearly always our top recommendation, so you can assume that for every product type listed below we would endorse this option if possible. Buying from a more ethical local independent business is often another good choice.
The Best Buy brands listed scored positively across most of our ethical ratings categories, and recommended brands scored better than average in some. For products where few brands were operating ethically enough to recommend, we’ve named some that were at least not the worst rated.
If you want to know more details about how all the alternative brands score against specific ethical issues then you can subscribe to our website and magazine. A subscription (or donation towards a solidarity subscription) also supports our work in holding corporate power to account.
Six years of research
We generally only promote research we’ve conducted in the past couple of years, to ensure it’s up-to-date. But as millions of people worldwide are seeking ethical alternatives right now as the assault on Gaza continues, we’ve decided to share all relevant research from our guides published between 2018 and 2024.
If any new information comes to light, for example if a brand has a new owner or has drastically changed how it approaches ethical issues, we’ll update this list of alternatives accordingly on our website.
