Transparency
We are committed to being transparent about what we do at Ethical Brand Directory.
On this page, we detail the things we do, and how we spend any money generated through membership.
Ethical Brand Directory (EBD) is a service-based model, ran as a not-for-profit project, that operates mostly online as a result of the pandemic. We do have plans to create pop-up experiences again, but this will not be revisited until the end of 2024. Our focus is on amplifying our SEO and organic traffic and partnering with relevant sites such as Roberta Lee – The Sustainable Stylist, where we can mutually benefit from backlinks and sharing content. This is our founder’s styling website site – and the business follows and upholds the same moral, ethical and sustainable values as EBD.
Suppliers we use
ZOHO Business
We were moved onto the ZOHO platform by our former website advisor Steve Woody. He believed this offered us the best option to grow our project into a scalable business. Due to the intense level of work required to go through system migrations, we have decided to stay with ZOHO for now. According to AmbitionBox “Zoho employees rate the overall salary and benefits package 4.2/5 stars”
WORDPRESS
We use WordPress for our website and various themes – in addition to a lot of custom builds and various plugins by different developers. We were unable to find out much about the ethical practices at WordPress unfortunately…
WEBSITE HOSTING
We’ve made a switch from WP Engine to Green Geeks which is a start. They aren’t the perfect switch but they are considerably better for us at this time. Our website is pretty big, and it uses a lot of images, code and customisation – which means more power is used to load a page on our website.
IMAGES & ASSETS ONLINE
Like most businesses over the years, we’ve discovered that the more we put on our website, the more energy it requires to load the page. We’ve committed to scaling back a lot of what we do on the website to keep it running fast and clean. Beautiful images are a big part of how we communicate – so whilst we aren’t scaling back on photos right now, it is something we are considering for the future.
BANKING
We currently bank with Starling Business. Starling, unlike our former bank HSBC, doesn’t use its customer’s money to fund fossil fuels, mining, arms or the military. Starling invests in government securities and other high-quality liquid assets. It is also working towards net zero emissions.
PRINTING
We have suspended all marketing activities that produce large amounts of single-use materials/and or plastic waste. Printing is done ad-hoc using earth-friendly inks and recycled paper by local printers – or printing is done via an HP monthly at-home subscription service. Approximately 2-5 sheets of paper are printed per month and recycled after use.
INVOICING
We use ZOHO Books for generating our invoices and creating payment checkouts on our membership pages.
We also use STRIPE and PayPal for handling payments as well.
MARKETING TOOLS
We use a variety of packages – we use ZOHO campaigns and CRM to keep out data secure and to comply with data protection. We use primarily use Missing Lttr. Social Bee for scheduling our content.
FREELANCERS
Our freelancers are also paid above a minimum wage in the UK or their respective country, depending on their age and relevant experience, from £8.50 – £20 p/h for flexible remote working positions – with discretionary performance-related bonuses offered.
CARBON OFFSETTING
We plant trees with One Tree Planted to help offset some of the negative impacts of running our website.
OUR OPERATING EXPENSES
Secure Website Hosting – £300 a year
Zoho CRM + Business Suite Tools £792 a year
Marketing Tools + Add Ons
Between £33- 180 a year
Video hosting £226.80 a year
Freelance website support
between £400 – £800 a year
Ad hoc Consultation Fees £100 – 500 a year
Business memberships £1320 a year
*Operating pop-up shops £3,000 – 10,000 a year
Ad hoc expenses £250- £3000 a year
Giving Back + Tree planting £150 – £500 a year
WE KNOW EVERY DAY ACTIONS MATTER
Every action counts – and whilst we recognise it’s not possible to be perfect – we are committed to being conscious and making the best decisions we can with the knowledge we have, and the financial resources we have available.
Not all of our suppliers and service providers have been audited with the same diligence as our future business partners and the brands we list on our directory. This is largely down to a lack of availability and/or outside of our pricing. It is something we are slowly working towards, finding replacements that we can trust and offering more ethical and eco-credentials that are aligned with our values.
our fees
We believe that it is unethical of us to expect our team to work unpaid. We don’t think it’s very ethical to take services from any service provider and expect them to waive the fees because we are a platform ‘doing good’.
This is why we don’t waive our membership fees, the money raised from membership subscriptions to be listed on our directory, helps go towards covering our operational costs. If we do generate ‘profit’ it is reinvested into our platform, and training and support sessions for our members.