Interview #1
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pam McQuade, owner of the Natural Path in Altamont, New York. Pam's store is stocked only with products that either help or cause no harm to humans and the environment. This makes her arguably one of the most ethical businesses in our community in these areas, making her an excellent candidate for an interview. Here's what I learned:
-Q: What made you care about human health and the environment?
Pam told me she was raised with an appreciation for the outdoors. She described her parents as "Earth-people" who taught her to respect and observe the natural world. This explains a lot of ethics- following a given instinct to do no harm.
Q: What are the benefits of being an ethical business?
"If we kill our world, we kill ourselves," Pam told me. For Pam, the benefit is essentially being ethical and seeing the payoff in her health and in the environment. She loves that she gets to demonstrate ethics through example and give customers a way to take care of their own footprint on the earth.
Q: What are some disadvantages of ethical consumerism in your own life?
Pam finds it hard to forsake technology at times as well as resisting the compulsion to buy the latest and greatest replacement to a perfectly good belonging. We talked about how if you have a functioning TV but a slightly bigger model of the same TV comes out next year, lots of people are tempted to buy the new TV. If this doesn't sound familiar, consider society's compulsion to buy the new iPhone every time a new model is released. This is a problem not only for our wallets but for the planet- the means to properly dispose of technology, appliances, and things of that nature are not at the standards they need to be at collectively. Still, the temptation to buy the unneeded replacement is prominent.
What are some of the results you've seen in our community because of your business?
Pam told me that people appreciate "real things." She feels that our collective appreciation for the natural world and awareness is growing- much more than it was five years prior. Just the other day, Pam had a customer come in who was a father and husband. He came in thinking cough syrup was the only cure for his children's colds and came out with an essential oil, educated about aromatherapy and how to pick the gentlest oil for children. "People are developing an awareness and trust for their natural instincts."
Q: Why should people shop natural? Do you think "green" is always better?
Pam explained that shopping "natural" is shopping probiotic, probiotic meaning "for life." She told me that she feels that this is always better because like cures like- when we shop in alignment with what's best for our natural health and natural world, we do what nature intended us to. We talked about the dangers of toxins and chemicals in the unnatural market to which Pam brought up an excellent point- these chemicals and toxins can hurt us. By buying things in alignment with the natural world, we are in no way completely prevented from harm but we are less likely to be harmed health-wise.
At this point in the interview, we started talking about how you vote with your dollar when it comes to ethical consumerism. "Our grandchildren will have a better Earth this way. Your dollar dictates what system thrives," she told me.
Overall, Pam's concluding message was that if you want to be a conscious consumer in our economy, you need to do your homework. Always read the label and understand deceptive advertising. Pam's ethos in this subject is strong because she grew up through the energy crisis of the 70's and she has not seen the kind of change she deems necessary in our behavior. Through raising awareness and voting with our dollar, Pam believes that the necessary changes can be made.