Start-up cuts through the bull for ethical consumption

Businesses are being scrutinised by a social enterprise start-up company that monitors their operational ethics.

The start-up, founded by Aucklander Sam Yoon, is called Nobs ratings and is based on a motto of "a world with NO Bull****, NO child labour, NO pollution, NO inequality".

The current target group is university students in Auckland.

Nobs ratings uses an algorithm to judge its clients on five pillars: the environment, local community engagement, fair trade, labour conditions, and "prosumer" behaviour - prosumption is a form of consumption that focuses on the production of a business’s goods.

One of the start-up’s goals is to provide clear information to people on the products they are buying.

Partnerships manager, Max Rogers, said: “I think consumers would be more likely to consider ethical information when they’re purchasing [products] if they were there when they purchased it”.

“You see the end product, but you don’t see the process behind it.”

If information on the operation process was transparent to consumers, said Mr Rogers, “they’ll be able to make a better, informed purchase”.

Mr Rogers said the business’s movement is also a “culture shift”.

If people knew more about what they were purchasing, said Mr Rogers, students could support the idea and get their families and friends to think about “what is ethical and how they can be ethical when they purchase [products]”.

Kate Kearins, AUT's deputy dean of business and law, said she liked Nobs ratings' “clear message, their clear mandate for their business”.

“They look like they’re onto a good idea. I really like the iconoclastic and youthful face of the website and the language. I think it cuts through [to the public].”

But judging companies as a whole, said Ms Kearins, raises the issue of “a lot of aggregation”.

Asked if all New Zealanders would be able to spend money on more ethical products, Ms Kearins said research proved that a “middle to upper [class] category” were making pro-social and pro-environmental choices.

However, Nobs ratings “picked up some of the key things people care about and that actually matter on a wider scale”.

“We know that ideally to make a better world, we’d be prompting consumers to become more conscious of their behaviours and to be more responsible in their buying choices.”

Nobs ratings was involved in the nine-week programme, Live the Dream.