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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks that Be.

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Speaker 2: A sustainability commentator. Kate Hall aka Ethically Kate. Who's with

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Speaker 2: us this morning?

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Speaker 3: Kilder? Well did that's good?

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Speaker 2: Very good? Thank you? This morning you were with us

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Speaker 2: with some really simple practical tips on how to ask

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Speaker 2: brands about the ethical and sustainable practices. Why does this matter?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think as consumers we get very passive and

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Speaker 4: we think, you know, brand's not going to reply to us,

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Speaker 4: or you know, what does my kind of opinion matter?

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Speaker 4: And can you know what? Can I ask brands about

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Speaker 4: the supply chains and things like that? And it's important

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Speaker 4: that we do ask and realize actually we can be

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Speaker 4: active consumers and active in our purchasing decisions. And we

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Speaker 4: need to be because we need to make sure that

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Speaker 4: the people who are making our products are paid fairly.

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Speaker 4: That knowing what things are made with, so we can

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Speaker 4: care for them, you know, as best as we can. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: it's important that we become far more active in our

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Speaker 4: consumption rather than just mindlessly grabbing it and not thinking

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Speaker 4: about its whole life cycle or.

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Speaker 3: Who made it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Nice, Okay, So you've got some simple questions where you

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Speaker 2: can go and ask a brand or ask someone a

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Speaker 2: representative of the brand what they've done. And you've kind

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Speaker 2: of crafted these over the last few years. So what

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Speaker 2: would be your advice to listeners when they're when they're

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Speaker 2: asking these questions of brands, if they want to know

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Speaker 2: about a brand's kind of sustainability creeds.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So I've worked on this list for probably actually the

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Speaker 4: last nine years, and I've tried. Obviously, I have the

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Speaker 4: privilege of this being my job and being able to

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Speaker 4: ask all these questions to brands, and I've crafted the

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Speaker 4: questions in a way that gets the best out of

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Speaker 4: the brand, because you know, you can get some pretty

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Speaker 4: some pretty no basic and poor and kind of tokenistic answers.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there is, there is, and I look for, like,

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Speaker 5: I have this list of questions which we can go through,

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Speaker 5: but I I always look for I'm not looking for

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Speaker 5: particular answers.

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Speaker 4: There's no kind of It's not like a homework test

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Speaker 4: and you can quiz and like technical, you got that

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Speaker 4: one right, you know, sustainable, sustainability and ethics all very

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Speaker 4: there's it's not black and white. So I look for

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Speaker 4: transparency and honesty. You know, if a brand, one of

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Speaker 4: the first questions they ask is where your all your

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Speaker 4: products and materials source from and how they produced? And

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Speaker 4: if a brand goes, we source all of our fabrics

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Speaker 4: one hundred percent sustainably from you know, that is a

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Speaker 4: red flag. That is, you know, sustainably according to what metric?

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Speaker 4: You know, sustainably. It's every single brand, you know, even

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Speaker 4: all the amazing sustainable brands I work with. Everyone has

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Speaker 4: something they need to work on. So I look for

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Speaker 4: transparency and a brand being able to say, hey, yep,

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Speaker 4: they you know, here's some information, and as much information

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Speaker 4: as possible is really great, but you know, we're not

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Speaker 4: doing these things.

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Speaker 3: Right yet and we're working on this.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's when I'd be way more likely to

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Speaker 4: purchase from them, you know, and to support them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You want a brand that has enough kind of honesty.

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Speaker 2: I suppose that they can acknowledge that they're they're imperfect, right.

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Speaker 2: Any any brand that immediately says it's absolutely nailing it

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Speaker 2: is there's something a bit fishy the Yeah. So let's

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Speaker 2: talk through some of these questions. First of all, where

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Speaker 2: are all your products and materials sourced from? And how

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Speaker 2: are they produced? That's a big one, right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I mean that's huge.

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Speaker 4: That's usually the one that, Yeah, especially when I'm vetting

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Speaker 4: brands to put them on my eth hole directory, it's

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Speaker 4: usually the longest list because you know, there may be

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Speaker 4: you know, even a T shirt may have where the

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Speaker 4: threads from?

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Speaker 3: Where's the fabric from? Where the tag?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 3: What about the swing tags? How? Yeah, the packaging materials.

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Speaker 4: So that's that's a big one because a lot of

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Speaker 4: the products we buy a mixed materials or a lot

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Speaker 4: of the stores that we're asking this question of have

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Speaker 4: multiple different products made from different things. But that's a yeah,

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Speaker 4: important to ask. And you know that the brand should

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Speaker 4: know their supply chains and you know where they were made.

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Speaker 2: You should ask where do your product end up at

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Speaker 2: the end of their life?

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Speaker 4: Yes, yep, so like how can they be recycled and

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Speaker 4: kept in our resource loops so that they're not just

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Speaker 4: used for a short amount of time and then end

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Speaker 4: up in a hole in the ground.

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Speaker 2: How are you how are your products shipped to customers?

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Speaker 2: And what's the New Zealand shipping cost? Why do you

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Speaker 2: ask both of those?

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Speaker 3: Yes?

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Speaker 4: I often ask that because some brands that's a that's

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Speaker 4: a key one for me because some brands they're like

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Speaker 4: way overseas and potentially the shipping may cost just as

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Speaker 4: much as the product or if it's not available. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I'm asking that one too because I'm wanting to be

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Speaker 4: able to recommend it to people as a sustainable blogger.

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Speaker 4: So I always ask that around the shipping costs because

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Speaker 4: you can get hit with yeah, extra fees and that

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Speaker 4: type of thing, which isn't sustainable if you can find

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Speaker 4: something else that is hearing you Zealand and not not

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Speaker 4: shipped around the globe and a lot of companies who

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Speaker 4: have a carbon neutral shipping and they're actually factoring that

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Speaker 4: into their kind of you know, yeah, that how they

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Speaker 4: do things in their business.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, you should ask who makes your products and

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Speaker 2: how do you ensure they're pay to fee awake.

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Speaker 4: Yes, that's one of my favorite ones. I mean that's

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Speaker 4: how ethically Kate and my whole work started was with

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Speaker 4: this question pretty much.

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Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, who makes them?

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Speaker 4: And yeah, do they work in a place where they

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Speaker 4: get lunch breaks and you know, overpay, if extra pay,

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Speaker 4: if they work over time and things like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, here's one that I might stumble people or cause

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Speaker 2: people to stumble. Suppose, aside from the people who make

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Speaker 2: your products, tell me about your team culture.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a bit of a wild card.

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Speaker 4: It's not you know, the classic who made your products.

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Speaker 4: But I think with sustainability, it's there's a big breadth

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Speaker 4: to it. So if you're looking at a company and

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Speaker 4: they may be like, yeah, we make our products sustainably.

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Speaker 4: In India, they have like far beyond the living wage

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Speaker 4: and it's awesome, but they may have people here in

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Speaker 4: New Zealand just working their butts off and earning minimum wage,

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Speaker 4: or they're kind of not thinking about the diversity of

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Speaker 4: their models for their products or things like that. That

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Speaker 4: is sustainability to It goes right down to the head office.

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Speaker 4: And I find it really hard actually because a lot

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Speaker 4: of the sustainable brands are run by one person who

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Speaker 4: doesn't pay themselves a wage. You know they're really trying,

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Speaker 4: and you know there is a time and place for

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Speaker 4: that when you're starting. But I think this actually gets

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Speaker 4: a lot of small brands thinking because they're like, oh, shoot,

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Speaker 4: if I need to continue doing the sustainable business, I

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Speaker 4: actually need to make sure I'm paying my own rent

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Speaker 4: to in my own costs as well. So that gets

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Speaker 4: that becomes a really cool conversation that often these companies

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Speaker 4: aren't asked.

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Speaker 2: So where are you asking them?

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Speaker 3: So?

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Speaker 2: Are you emailing them? Are you seeing them person Like

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Speaker 2: in a retail shop, you're just going up to someone

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Speaker 2: who's working there and saying, hey, can I have a

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Speaker 2: couple of minutes?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, in a retail shop, I've learned that doesn't work

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Speaker 4: because usually the retail person is yeah, they're just there.

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Speaker 4: They'd actually don't know much about the company or the

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Speaker 4: clothes or have you made which I.

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Speaker 3: Would like to see changed? But that's another point.

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Speaker 4: So usually via email of these questions, you can actually

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Speaker 4: even message them on Instagram or Facebook, you know, as

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Speaker 4: a customer, that's something that brand's like responding to those

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Speaker 4: questions is in their best interest. They want you to

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Speaker 4: make a purchase. They you know, and you deserve to

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Speaker 4: know where your clothes were made, where your product, you know,

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Speaker 4: any type of product that you're buying, yeah, where it

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Speaker 4: came from. And we we all need to be far

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Speaker 4: more aware of that so that we can actually vote

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Speaker 4: with our pocket and buy things that are from ethically

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Speaker 4: made spaces.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know too, that you've got that directory, which

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Speaker 2: is really helpful, so people can go and say that

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Speaker 2: you've done the hard work by collating all of this

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Speaker 2: a lot of things, well yeah, yeah yeah, but we'll

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Speaker 2: make sure we put those questions up online as well.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Kate, and we will catch you

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Speaker 2: again very soon. That is Kate Hall aka ethically Kate.

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Speaker 2: You can find her on all of the social media

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Speaker 2: platforms by searching ethically Kate.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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