The choices you make about how and where you spend is where the power to make positive change lies. See our simple four step guide to ethical consumerism to learn how you can become part of making the change.

Locally sourced
Ever felt guilty about your carbon footprint when you've taken a holiday abroad? Well, don't forget that the last grapes, oranges or wine you bought probably took the same journey before making it to your local supermarket. Luckily, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons now all stock locally sourced products, so pay attention the country and area of origin labels on fresh produce when you buy.

Second hand
Charity shops are a good place to start, especially for Fairtrade fashion. Oxfam have revamped several stores which are now dedicated to fashion and even sell some special items online. If you have plenty of time to rummage and an eye for fashion, then you'll be surprised how many fashion finds there are in almost every charity shop.

If you can't find what you want in a charity shop, try local newspapers, or buying second hand online. All second hand buying prevents unnecessary waste and unnecessary production.

Doffed caps to Debbie Callender and her bloke Ray O'Neill, who between them have come up with a really superb new veggie cooking blog Fiver Food. Debbie is a real natural in front of the camera and the videos (and indeed the choice of recipies) are first class.

They will apparently be uploading two new videos each week. Anyhow here's the vid for Veggi Chow Mein.

Ben and Jerry are world famous for their ice cream, a range of flavours with cutesy names and packaging ('Yes Pecan!' a new flavour created for Barack Obama's inauguration is my favourite name). Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield started the company in 1978 after taking a correspondence course in ice cream making and have always focused on making their product and practices the best possible ethically, socially and environmentally, using free range eggs, sustainable dairy farming programmes and starting initiatives like the Climate Change College. The company was taken over in 2000 by multinational corporation Unilever, to wails of dismay and cries that they were selling out, but the brand has managed to remain ethical in its operation, today announcing its commitment to go 100% Fairtrade by the end of 2011. Hippyshopper caught up with Ben and Jerry for a short chat as they launched 100 Fair trades in Leicester Square this morning.

Q: Nowadays most companies are increasingly aware of ethical issues, as are consumers, whereas previously they weren't so prevalent. When you guys started out, what made you so environmentally and socially aware as a central concern of your company?

Ben: I just think it's what we cared about as people and then as the business started becoming larger we felt like we were in danger of just becoming another part of the corporate machine that tends to exploit the society and the community and the environment and its workers. We made a very conscious decision to only continue the business if we could find a way to use the business to be beneficial to the society and the environment and its workers and that began an experiment 25 years ago. You know, socially responsible business did not exist at the time and we had no idea whether we were going to be successful at it or not.

For 10 nights only from December 1st to December 12th, 'Mrs Paisley's' pop-up restaurant will be opening its doors once again to highlight the importance of eating in a more eco-conscious way.

Created by Ronnie Wood's ex, Jo Wood, and Arthur Potts Dawson, chef and co-owner of Acorn House, Mrs. Paisley's Lashings is a genuinely innovative project taking place at Jo's own home, Holmwood House, Kingston.

Every feature of the restaurant will be driven by environmental concerns. Ingredients will be sourced from the greatest producers in the UK as well as grown in Jo's own garden or picked at local allotments.

Several of the evenings will also be hosted in association with some of the world's most international renowned eco-luminaries in order to further the vital message about food and the environment. And profits from Mrs Paisley's Lashings will be ploughed back into creating Mrs Paisley gardens in schools across the UK where children can learn about growing their own nourishing food.

Costing £100 for a three course meal including house wine selected by the Chef and a sample cocktail, it's not exactly a cheap night out but it promises to be a great experience. For reservations at Mrs Paisley's Lashings you can contact Amy Wright 0207 4071407 or amy@outersanctum.net.

www.mrspaisleyslashings.com

A humble cup of coffee is usually transformed into a stylish and sophisticated cappuccino by adding frothed milk, which has been whipped up using an electric 'steamer'. But if you don't want a bulky and energy-guzzling device taking up space in your kitchen, a cool alternative is on offer at Ethical Superstore, which now stocks the 'Presso' non-electric espresso and cappuccino coffee maker. It has handles, a bit like a bottle opener, to create the necessary pressure to make these speciality coffees and more.

Still confused? So was I. Follow the jump to see a video of the Presso in action!

£88.95 at Ethical Superstore

The opportunity to share the many benefits of a great tasting healthy cruelty-free lifestyle with the world is upon us once again - it's National Vegetarian Week!

If you're already vegetarian you could use this week to help spread the word! Let everyone know that it's not just about lentils, tofu and open-toed sandals any more (although there's nothing particularly wrong with any of those). There's a whole world of deliciously sumptuous delights awaiting those who are willing to take a small dietary step. You veggies are the living proof of the benefits of this lifestyle - so get out there and show yourselves off!

What to do if you're not already a veggie...

Easter is on its way, and like any holiday, it brings with it a host of ethical dilemmas. If you're planning on tucking into a chocolate egg there are all the usual waste issues to consider, and are you're going to spend your hard-earned cash on fairtrade and/or organic eggs for you and your family this year? But even if you're going to stick to good old chuckie eggs, you're not off the hook, even if you always insist on buying free range.

Apparently, our greed for extra large eggs is causing untold misery and suffering to our national brood (and Lord knows hens seem to suffer enough already). The fairly obvious reason being that - as Tom Vesey, of the British Free Range Producers' Association put it,'it can be painful for a hen to lay a larger egg'.

Related: Free-range outsell battery eggs for the first time | Chicken Out: Would you buy battery again?

Are you still getting a veg box delivered? When I started on this blog, I, along with most of my neighbours seemed to be having weekly shipments of organic goodness from Farmaround or Abel & Cole, but nowadays the green van seems to be visiting with much less frequency; presumably replaced by the discount shopping bag and can of baked beans.

But are we being fooled by supermarkets and their increasingly elaborate 'special discounts' into feeling like we're saving when we could be doing just as well on more wholesome food?

The latest product to go fairtrade is one that I think marks a real sea change in the move towards more ethical trading practices in big business. It's one of the UK's best selling brands: Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate!

As the nation's best selling chocolate bar, Dairy Milk's switch to fairtrade will result in the tripling of cocoa sales under fairtrade terms for farmers in Ghana, both increasing Fairtrade cocoa sales for existing certified farming groups, as well as opening up new opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the system. Where fairtrade chocolate was once hard to come by and not especially tasty, this move means that from July, millions of people will be buying fairtrade without even knowing it.

Related: Cadbury's to introduce 'fart free' chocolate | Cadbury's eco egg is greener than we thought!

Shrove Tuesday is here, and if you want to attempt something a bit more adventurous than sugar and lemon this year, why not experiment with some mouth-watering recipes for seriously special pancakes? I've found some great ideas for toppings today from the guys at Freedom Foods, including stewed rhubarb and ginger and cinnamon and rum-glazed bananas. Crikey. Is it lunchtime yet?

Follow the jump for the recipes!

Divine make some of the scrummiest fairtrade chocolate around, in my opinion, and to mark the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, they're giving away a free bar to anyone who takes the time to fill out this form.

The reason Divine tastes so good may well come down to the quality of the cocoa butter that goes into the chocolate and I was interested to learn that Divine uses the very same melt-on-the-skin cocoa butter from Kuapa Kokoo as The Body Shop includes in its Body Butter products. Through trade with both organisations, over 50,000 small-scale farmers now receive a fair, above average price for their above average cocoa butter. The trade also contributes to Kuapa's social fund which is used to provide schools, wells, drinking water and medical facilities.

Related: Recipes with a heart from Divine Chocolate

We've all heard the sorry stats: cattle produce a lot of methane, which is 20 times worse for the environment than C02 (if you've ever got a bit too friendly with a cow, this fact probably isn't a hard one to believe). So we all need to reduce our consumption of meat and dairy to stop this noxious gas being belched and farted into the sky.

So it's good to see one heavy consumer of milk and cream taking ownership of this rather stinky problem: Cadbury's is working to reduce emissions, after the Carbon Trust revealed that the famous glass-and-a-half of milk in every bar is responsible for 60% of the chocolate's carbon emissions.

How?

Related: Silly Cow: Ben & Jerry's battle against belching | Scientists work to keep sheep and cows less windy in New Zealand

Remember that promise you made to yourself about a month ago that you'd spend 2009 cramming as much fruit and veg into your poor, punished carcass as possible? Well, if you've already 'forgotten' all that on the not-unreasonable basis that buying fresh smoothies daily is wholly incompatible with any cost-cutting strategies you've probably also introduced, then Ecoutlet could just have a solution for you.

Related: How to make a blueberry and banana smoothie

I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to reduce food waste around the home, and I really wish I'd known about back when I did my 'no waste' challenge!

Cooking By Numbers simply presents you with a list of common everyday foodstuffs found in your fridge and/or cupboard, and you tick off the items you have. The site then searches a database of recipes and instantly presents a list of recipes that you can make with the foods available to you. Bookmark it now!

Related: Green challenges: Abi's leftover food trial | Hippyshopper's guide to leftover food

Like many struggling city-dwellers, I've resolved to stop buying my lunch in shiny coffee establishments and takeaway shops and have been opting instead to bring my own home-made fare. The small amount of extra effort this new 'regime' has entailed is already starting to pay off, and I'm very aware of how DIY lunches can help the envorinment too if you do 'em right.

Follow the jump for my guide to an eco-friendly, credit crunch lunch