New app helps you avoid unethical brands and companies

When you go shopping it's not easy to keep track on which products or brands you shouldn't buy to avoid supporting the destruction of rainforests or animal abuse. How can you know which products follows proper environmental standards, which corporations who fuels climate denialism, which brand of rice that are GMO-free or which corporations who are openly supporting LGBT rights? It just seems as an impossible feat to exert your power as an individual consumer and make informed decisions! But a new smartphone app could help you avoid the Koch Brothers, Monsanto or any other corporation with a terrible environmental or social track record the next time you go shopping.

The Buycott app - which is available for free on your Iphone and on Android devices soon - makes it possible for you to scan the barcode on any product and trace its ownership from various corporate subsidiaries all the way up to the main parent company. The Forbes write:

"Once you've scanned an item, Buycott will show you its corporate family tree on your phone's screen. Scan a box of Splenda sweetener, for instance, and you'll see its parent, McNeil Nutritionals, is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.

Even more impressively, you can join user-created campaigns to boycott business practices that violate your principles rather than single companies. One of these campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food."

This all sounds very promising! So check out the app and maybe next time you go shopping it'll be easier to choose products that reflects your principles. Have you already tried the app? Let us know what you think about it in the comments below!