Your Shopping Superpower - by Diane Osgood (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Your Shopping Superpower provides an insightful guide and strategies for shoppers to align the contents in their carts with their personal values.

Are there harmful toxins in your food and body care? Who makes the products you purchase and under what conditions? What impact does the production of these items have on the environment? If 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending, then every purchase we make has a physical and social impact on the world. Unfortunately, our shopping choices can unintentionally contribute to climate change and social injustice. Many people wish they could do more to combat these unjust and unsustainable outcomes. So what is the connection between our purchases and this impact? Your Shopping Superpower explores this important question and offers a comprehensive guide that navigates toward positive and sustainable shopping practices by providing pragmatic tips, tools and revealing how our habits can help reduce climate change, support companies with equitable workplace conditions, and foster diverse, local businesses.

Broken into categories including People, Planet, Community, and Health, Diane Osgood expands on key issues regarding climate degradation, labor exploitation, products containing carcinogens and toxins, and the importance of supporting local, women-owned, and minority-owned businesses while covering an array of products that include food, fashion, gifts, household items, and personal care. Addressing shoppers' doubts about whether consumer choices truly have an impact and their concerns about costs and accessibility, Osgood shows how making these easy changes fosters happiness. With helpful diagrams and firsthand stories on climate and social injustice, Your Shopping Superpower informs and guides shoppers on how to:

Implement one change per week Identify trustworthy certifications, rating systems, and apps Detect greenwashing and other misleading marketing Determine which purchases to switch for maximum impact Handle and approach choices that aren't easy or affordable

By changing what we buy, we can initiate the change in our economy's environmental footprint and social impact. To enact change, we must start simple; it's about progress, not perfection.

Review Quotes

"This is a must-read for anyone wanting to leverage their purchase power to build a better world. Diane created the required field manual for responsible purchasing, converting passion into practice. She made it simple for us."

--Justin Dillon, founder, FRDM and Slavery Footprint

"Whether for your health, or for people and planet, this timely guidebook shows you how to unleash your power to vote for the world you want each time you shop. I have been lucky to have had Diane as my mentor for decades and her experience in ethical shopping is unsurpassed. In her own words, 'Now in a world that seems to have lost heart, you can shop with yours.'"

--Julia Ormond, actor and human rights activist

"The sleeping giants for a better world are consumers. The language of business is profits and the big influence on governments are business. It all derives from people consuming goods. It is rare for a book to offer the why, what and how, but Diane Osgood has done it in this book! She has done it brilliantly. It delves into discovering values based shopping guides that will engender happiness, and empower people to discover their response-ability for a better world --and it is clear and readable.

There was a great film based on the bestselling book Bridges over Madison County. Clint Eastwood did everything in his power to direct the film. The whole story revolves around the understanding that we are the decisions that we make. This is what our work in combatting and preventing modern slavery and creation of The Chocolate Scorecard is based on. Helping consumers make decisions that make a difference. What Diane Osgood has done in this book explains precisely what we are trying to do. The principles, actions and outcomes not only help consumers, but the same principles also help business. Get ready for the ride that could remedy and redeem your life to bring real hope for a better world."

--Fuzz and Carolyn Kitto, co-directors, Be Slavery Free and The Chocolate Scorecard

"We all have the power to change the world through the products we buy. Here's a guidebook that shows you how."

--Paul Rice, author of Every Purchase Matters

"Every time we buy, we vote. This timely guidebook empowers us as shoppers to demand good jobs of dignity, clean non-toxic products, and a restored environment"

--Ayesha Barenblat, founder, Remake (www.remake.world)

"A timely masterpiece! A powerful, fact-based work backed by thirty years of experience. Essential reading for our times--insightful, practical, and much needed."

--Diana Verde Nieto, business leader and sustainability expert, author of Reimagining Luxury, and co-founder of Edify Collective

"Balance your buying with your beliefs. In this wise book, learn steps to minimize toxicity and harm to our Earth by harmonizing your values and your choices."

--Elena Brower, author of Practice You and Hold Nothing

"It's difficult to shop our way out of the climate crisis, but we can organize, connect, and make a difference. In this practical guide, Diane Osgood helps us see that we are not alone, and that collective action is not just possible, it's essential."

--Seth Godin, founding editor, The Carbon Almanac

About the Author

Diane Osgood is co-author with Seth Godin on the best-selling The Carbon Almanac (Portfolio, 2022) and a leader in the Carbon Almanac Network, a global network of 3000 concerned citizens. Osgood advises people such as former President Bill Clinton, presidents and prime ministers from Caribbean countries and Costa Rica, fashion icon Donna Karan, actress Julia Ormond, and other change-makers. A pioneering sustainability strategist with three decades of corporate sustainability experience, she's worked for a range of Fortune 100 companies and for Richard Branson as his director of sustainability for five years. Her consultancy, Osgood Consulting (https: //dianeosgood.com), helps companies prepare for climate change. Osgood occasionally writes for Greenbiz.com (7 million viewers) and FastCompany. She earned her doctorate in environmental economics at the London School of Economics. Sustainability is her passion, not just her work.