Loved EDUN‘s organic cotton T-shirts for their eco-friendly, fair trade goodness backed by a company founded on eco-socially conscious values? Get ready to shift your thinking a bit, because Louis Vuitton’s taken a big green bite of the green company.
That’s right, LVMH’s bought a near-50% minority stake in EDUN. This news isn’t necessarily bad — LVMH’s big and powerful, and could put some of that power into EDUN, helping to make socially and environmentally-conscious clothing a part of everyone’s wardrobe.
On the downside, LVMH isn’t known for its high labor standards, as M.J. Prest at Ethical Style points out. It’s unclear, as of now, what effect LVMH’s stake will have on EDUN’s practices.
How do you deal with buyouts of little companies you’ve grown to love? For my part, I still buy Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, even though it’s now owned by Colgate, mainly because the stuff hasn’t changed and I haven’t found another natural toothpaste that I like….
Photo via EDUN
Louis Vuitton has been working with Global Green USA’s ex-KGB Soviet leader Gorbachev. Verrryyy interrresting. (to quote Laugh’In)
Comment by Remy Chevalier — May 19, 2009 @ 3:24 pm
I try never to buy things that come from a large company–whether from a division that was once independent or not. This is more of a societal choice than an eco one: I prefer to spread the wealth instead of letting it all “trickle up” to the corporate oligarchy.
You’d think this would mean having to do without products I really like, but I have no favorite products (I’ve been anti-consumerism for a long time), so I’ve never had a problem. For toothpaste, for example, I just use plain ol’ baking soda (also to avoid plastic in toothpaste tubes), and I love it.
Carrick’s last blog post..My good deed for the year: saving sea turtles at the LA River
Comment by Carrick — May 20, 2009 @ 11:32 am
Yeah — I don’t think I can do the baking soda thing — or the vinegar thing for shampoo. But I hear what you’re saying about a desire to sort of support the underdog :)
Comment by Siel — May 22, 2009 @ 2:30 pm