ShopSmart's Exclusive Shopping Guide to the Best Companies to Buy From

YONKERS, NY –  ShopSmart, the preeminent shopping magazine from the publisher of Consumer Reports has compiled an exclusive list of the best companies to buy from for food, home and personal products, furniture, clothing, and more. Companies that made the list are standouts when it comes to the environment, labor relations, or philanthropy.

“We are happy to say that we found plenty of companies that are doing the right thing,” said Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief, ShopSmart.  “Of course, there’s no such thing as a perfect company but it’s not about perfection. It’s about making a genuine effort. And those companies that make a genuine effort are the ones that deserve your shopping dollars.”

To differentiate between those businesses that are socially responsible from those that are not, ShopSmart combed through research from many sources on thousands of companies. ShopSmart's sources include the National Green Pages, a directory of nearly 3,000 businesses that support organic farms, use sweatshop-free labor, and try to be socially just; and the Corporate Critic Web site, which rates the social responsibility records of thousands of companies. ShopSmart also consulted a number of independent experts in the field and talked to the environmental experts at Consumers Union’s Greener Choices project, which evaluates green products and more. ShopSmart and Consumer Reports are both published by Consumers Union.

ShopSmart's report zeroes in on fifteen companies that produce food, home and personal products, furniture or clothing with proven track records of corporate integrity. Here’s the list of those companies—and what they do that makes them stand out from others:

Food

• Ben & Jerry’s makes donations of more than $1 million annually.
• Clif Bar moved a distribution center closer to a bakery to reduce its production of greenhouse gases.
• Kettle Foods converts cooking oil into biodiesel to power the fleet of company cars.
• Stonyfield Farms saved enough energy to power 4,500 homes for a year.

Home & Personal Products

• Burt’s Bees pledged $2 million to the Nature Conservancy to help conserve 185,000 acres of forest in Maine.
• Seventh Generation lends its employees up to $5,000 to buy a hybrid car.
• Tom’s of Maine lets employees spend 5% of their paid work hours volunteering.

Furniture

• Ikea sends auditors to factories to make sure working conditions are acceptable and does not accept timber from intact natural forests.

Clothing

• Patagonia funded and supported Argentina’s newest coastal national park.
• Timberland installed one of the 50 largest solar panel systems in the world in its California distribution center, and new lighting at U.S. distribution centers cut electricity use by about 40%.

The Best Small Companies

Some of the best companies out there are small, and their products might be tough to find. Still, ShopSmart has a few that are worth checking out:

• New Belgium Brewery gets its electricity from wind power.
• Frog’s Leap Wine uses organic grapes and water-saving farming methods.
• Equal Exchange exclusively offers Fair-Trade certified products.
• EcoFish stems the decline of fisheries by only selling sustainable seafood.
• Indigenous Designs sells natural and organic clothing that is handmade in more than 300 artisan cooperatives and knitting groups throughout South America.

Tips to Make Your Own “Best” List

No matter what your values may be, there are probably companies that share them. ShopSmart offers tips on how to use the Web and other resources to find those businesses and learn whether or not your favorite company has top-notch corporate integrity:

• “The Better World Shopping Guide” (www.betterworldshopper.com)
• “The Rough Guide to Shopping With a Conscience” (www.roughguides.com)
• “The National Green Pages” (www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages)
• “Domini Social Investments” (www.domini.com)
• “Calvert Funds” (www.calvert.com)
• “Corporate Critic” (www.corporatecritic.org)

About ShopSmart magazine:
Launched in Fall 2006 by Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, ShopSmart draws upon Consumer Reports' celebrated tradition of accepting no advertisements and providing unbiased product reviews. The magazine features product reviews, shopping tips on how to get the most out of products and “best of the best” lists. ShopSmart is ideal for busy shoppers who place a premium on time. ShopSmart has a newsstand price of $4.99 and is available nationwide at major retailers including Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Borders, Kroger, Safeway and Publix.