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Money might make the world go round, but it also gets the blame for plenty of environmental ills. Sarah Lewis tips the moths out of her wallet and finds out about ethical spending.

My salary at The Argus makes me one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

According to global richlist.com, I am in the top three per cent of global earners - the 150 millionth richest person on the planet or thereabouts.

But on a planet of six billion and earning a less-then-average Brighton salary, can those figures really add up?

They do, according to a 2006 UN report, which says one tenth of the world's population owns 85 per cent of the world's wealth.

While traditional economists tell us economic growth will eventually lift everyone out of poverty and provide funds to mitigate the effects of climate change, environmentalists point to the currently available evidence - it causes an ever-growing inequality between rich and poor and is to blame for the devastating environmental degradation we are seeing today.

Put simply, our economy is based on the need for constant growth, which directly equates to a constant need for more resource use. Those resources are the land, the air and the sea.

Vanessa Kelley, from ethical investment company Barchester Green, says: "We live in a chuck-away culture.

We can't keep buying more and more and more. We need to be more like our grandparents were - they bought something and it lasted. We have too much stuff these days."

Green activists and campaign groups regularly call for monetary reform, to cancel debt and work on a model based on stability rather than growth in order to curb the ever-growing need for resource use.

Communities all over the world have shown a more co-operative based economy works for the good of everyone. Bhutan, in the Himalayas, is one of the most remote and least developed nations in the world. Yet their monarchy holds Gross Domestic Happiness in higher regard than anything else and as a result it is widely thought of as the happiest country in the world.

On the other hand, in the UK, despite a 50 per cent rise in Gross Domestic Product over the past 25 years, many studies show our quality of life has reduced dramatically - and more than a fifth of our population lacks functional literacy skills, the highest level of illiteracy of all the industrial nations.

However, most of us don't have time to revolutionise global economic thinking in our lunch breaks so, thankfully, there is a much easier way of using your money for the greener good.

Vanessa say: "Money is probably the most powerful thing there is. If people buy certain products, companies are encouraged to produce them. You can also invest in areas which improve things, such as funds that improve the environment and companies that are not exploiting people or animals."

Professor John McMurty, author of The Global Markets As An Ethical System, argues every purchasing decision comes with its own moral choice and, while we may not be able to change the world overnight, we can at least make more conscious, more ethical purchasing decisions.

Vanessa says: "When you see things in a pound store and wonder how they do it, it is at a cost to the environment and by using cheap, unethical labour.

We need to be prepared to spend a bit more so things last and to not be fashion victims, which encourages spending."

11:42am Wednesday 6th February 2008

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