What makes a company unethical?

Example: Groupe Danone

The popular vegan brands Alpro, Provamel and Soya Soleil are owned by French multinational Groupe Danone. Group Danone has a 24.4% share in the global fresh dairy industry, so when we buy Alpro we’re actually funding one of the world’s largest dairy producers.

Alpro, which is by far the UK's best known vegan brand, is now part of a brand roster that includes Activa yogurt, Cow & Gate baby milk and Actimel.

Danone is also subject to multiple consumer boycotts over their aggressive marketing of baby milk formula.

Other examples include:

• The brand Pure which is owned by the Kerry Group, that owns other well-known brands include Richmond’s sausages, Wall’s Sausages, Dairygold and Cheesestrings.
• Linda McCartney, currently owned by Hain Celestial, a company that sells poultry products in the US, as well as owning Ella’s Kitchen baby food, much of which contains meat.

Example: The Walt Disney Company

Disney might be looked upon as a company that warms the hearts of children and adults alike and spreads a little magic in the world. Unfortunately, Disney is failing when it comes to the challenge of global warming and addressing its own environmental impact.

The Walt Disney Company is a member of four corporate lobby groups that were seen to influence policy-makers in favour of market solutions that were potentially detrimental to the environment. These lobby groups include the American Chamber of Commerce, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Coalition of Services Industries and the US Council for International Business.

Disney also received low ratings for its Climate, Cotton and Timber policies. As a company with a turnover of £43 billion, Disney clearly has the necessary resources to develop these practices and up its environmental game and yet no evidence that it was doing this was found. This makes Disney a prime example of an unethical company.

Example: Gap Inc

The clothing sector is particularly well-known for being implicated in workers' and human rights issues. We rate companies on several aspects, such as supply chain management, countries they source materials from, and whether they’ve been criticised for issues like discrimination, union-busting or low pay.

Gap Inc owns several clothing brands, including Gap and Banana Republic. When we last reviewed Gap Inc in January 2024 it received less than half of the available marks for Workers rights.

Gap Inc has been criticised in other reports too. For example, a report by the University of Aberdeen claimed that it was “exploiting Bangladesh garment industry workers, with some of them involved in unfair practices and paying the suppliers below the cost of production”.

Example: Superdrug

Superdrug has somewhat developed a reputation for being against animal testing, perhaps because it has Leaping Bunny approval for all its own-brand cosmetics and personal care products.

However, Superdrug also manufactures and retails medical products. When we last reviewed Superdrug in October 2023 no information was found in relation to the company’s policy around animal testing for medical products, so it was assumed that Superdrug does in fact test some of its products on animals.

Superdrug is owned by A.S. Watson Group, which owns the company PARKnSHOP. PARKnSHOP sold a range of meat and dairy products that were not labelled as free range or organic.

Superdrug is therefore part of a corporate family that retails meat and dairy, and it likely tests on animals.

Example: Amazon.com

One of the subcategories our readers are most interested in is Tax Conduct. Here, we rate companies on their likely use of tax avoidance strategies.

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is paying very little in corporation tax while raking in revenue. It is the subject of a global boycott call by Ethical Consumer.

When we last reviewed Amazon, it emerged that while the company’s headquarters were in Washington, it was incorporated in Delaware (considered a tax haven by Ethical Consumer). It also had five subsidiaries based in Nevada or Delaware, jurisdictions on Ethical Consumer's list of tax havens at the time of writing.

Ethical Consumer has calculated that, in 2021, up to half a billion pounds (£500,000,000) could have been lost to the UK public purse from the corporation tax avoidance of Amazon alone.

 In 2019, Fair Tax Mark named Amazon as having “the poorest tax conduct” of the six major tech companies – a sector known for its tax avoidance.

 Amazon has shunted much of its UK income to its subsidiary in Luxembourg, “where there is a ‘loss-making’ subsidiary that is not only not paying tax, but is generating enormous tax reliefs that can be used in the future to ensure that little or no tax continues to be paid,” according to Paul Monaghan from the Fair Tax Mark.

Overall, a range of third-party sources criticised Amazon for its tax conduct, the company had no country-by-country financial information or reporting (CBCR), nor a clear public tax statement confirming that it was its policy not to engage in tax avoidance activity or to use tax havens for tax avoidance purposes.

Overall Amazon received the lowest Ethical Consumer rating for the likely use of tax avoidance strategies.

The company has also been criticised for its global online market monopoly. During the first lockdown in the UK, 35% of all purchases made online were through the company.

As of 2019, almost 40% of UK shoppers had access to Amazon’s Prime subscription service. The company is the top fashion retailer in the USA.

It also has a very poor track record on workers' rights, with reports of impossible packing targets, worker surveillance, lack of breaks, and refusing union representation.

Find out more about these issues in our detailed Amazon boycott campaign page. PLUS we give you lots of links to recommended alternatives to Amazon!

Example: Pret a Manger

We searched the Pret a Manger website in March 2020, to find out how it sourced its palm oil.

No information was found. It wasn’t a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), nor did it supply any data about the amount of palm oil in its supply chain.

As a company operating in the food and drink industry Ethical Consumer considered it highly likely that it was selling and purchasing products containing palm oil such as bread, pastries, margarine and cleaning products.

The company therefore recieved a low rating for Palm Oil sourcing.