Clean Alibi’s ethical vision goes further than most.

Our unique Minimal Misery Manufacturing™ Manifesto sets out how:

[Long read / 5 minutes]

 

“Ethical, fair, sustainable, conscious” - says who?

 

Nobody agrees on what these buzzwords mean. It’s a bit like writing “I am a nice person” on your dating profile.

 

A quick look at any of the UK or international standards about making ethical claims tells you all you need to know about the state of so-called ‘ethical’ consumerism: it’s confusing, subjective, and inconsistent.

Even the International Office for Standardization (ISO) is honest about the confusion:

The proliferation of ethical claims has led to confusion in the marketplace, particularly where terms are used that are insufficiently or inconsistently defined, and where the scope of a claim, the basis of conformance or method of verification is unclear.
(Source: ISO/TS 17033:2019(en): Ethical Claims and Supporting Information)

Note: we are absolutely not saying that all products labeled ‘ethical,’ ‘fair,’ or ‘sustainable’ are making false claims. 

‘Conscious’ is a special case. [read why]

 

Nobody should be shopping while unconscious, just as nobody should be making anything while unconscious.

Conscious Consumption

The widescale penetration of this absurd term tells us everything we need to know about today’s cloudy picture of ethical shopping. 

 

“Minimal Misery” - is the only rational, real-world rebuttal to empty ‘ethical’ claims.

The minute we use the words ‘ethical’ or ‘fair’ we lose ourselves in an endless concrete jungle of brands using the same words to describe very different things. That’s how these words have lost their meaning. 

For Clean Alibi, ‘Minimal’ means that we reduce misery wherever, and whenever possible. It doesn’t mean we give up the goal of being genuinely good, ethical, fair, or sustainable. But it does mean that we reject the emptiness, and even elitism or greenwashing, of these claims, and instead try to live a real-world approach to making, sharing, and selling products and information, in a way that reduces harm. 

Ethical begins at home / being the change

Just because the (un)ethical behaviour of complex global supply chains remains slippery and opaque, it doesn’t mean we can't go right ahead and address those aspects we definitely can control. Manufacturing might be a grand term for Clean Alibi’s small batch approach, but it’s ~95% of what we do, and it does describe the great arc of production that lies within our control. Right here, right now. 

Minimal Misery Manufacturing is within our power.

That’s why it’s a promise that we make at Clean Alibi. We talk about ingredients or product components separately - and make any ethical claims very clearly, and with substantiation or benchmarking to the best of our ability and knowledge.

But manufacturing - producing the finished product - is where we can promise you that:

1. Your Clean Alibi product was made by someone who wanted to make it, because they believed in it, and because they wanted you to have it, because they wanted you to know that it is still possible, in this world, at this time, to have a product that unites both utility and beauty, and that was made from beginning to end by the same careful pair of hands. 
   
   
2. That person made your Clean Alibi product while entangled somewhere inside civilisation’s menu of joys and sorrows - and while bearing the joys and sorrows that amass on the shores of any individual human heart, too - and we know these deepen year by year.
   
   
3. That person made the whole product, pretty much. They even designed it. Even where they had to engage in production line ways of working, they still got to see the entire product journey from beginning to end - eventually.
    
   
4. Not a single product left the building until it was fully finished and ready for posting out to you. Nothing was shipped hither, or thither, or way over yonder, to have this done, or that done, or to reach a distant zenith of final, total assembly. It all happened under one roof - and it was a roof that was going to be electrified and powered, and gas-fed anyway, because the roof was one of a small domestic property. 

That’s why we say Minimal Misery. We didn't embrace misery, but we did stop trying to abolish it completely. We decided to start making useful things that held meaning for us, and we decided to make them with care, and (where possible) with joy or love. And we hope you feel that. Even if you don't buy anything, we hope you feel that, in the words we say, or the images and videos, and information that we share. 

Now for some possible hypocrisy: 

Q-  Is Clean Alibi an ethical brand? 

A - Yes. Clean Alibi is an ethical brand, because all of our products are made freely and deliberately, with meaning and intention, and in a safe, dry, and warm environment, with plentiful access to respite breaks and hydration.

Riiiiiiight, OK, but look who’s talking.... Look at the url. We know you want us to be ethical, so we are telling you that we are ethical, because that’s the word that search engines favour, and search engines are the bosses of everything, and we want you to buy our soap. Whose website is this? This is Clean Alibi’s website. Clean Alibi, knowing that you want your products to be ethical, is now telling you that they are ethical. Every single website claiming to showcase an ethical brand is doing just that. 

Where do we go from here? Sometimes it feels impossible or pointless to proceed. Always getting bogged down with endless relativistic weighings-in of various spectrums of ethics and harm, lost on a scale of good and bad. And surely, surely always more bad than good. Or?

What do you think? Do you think Minimal Misery Manufacturing makes sense? Or do you think it's a cop-out? Should we sing about being 'ethical'? Shout about being 'sustainable'? Are we splitting hairs? 

All we know is that Minimal Misery Manufacturing is the only way that Clean Alibi can deliver a genuine promise that comes anywhere near what the world deserves. It's also the only thing we can say without cringing inside, without knowing that we're using a once-bold word, now emptied of its meaning, to tell you, well, not very much in the final analysis.

Minimal Misery Manufacturing is us telling you that we will do the best we can to reduce negative impact. It’s us admitting that we can’t eliminate harm, and that no-one can. Not yet.