Slavery Footprint

Thanks to Google Reader share’s function, which is sadly going away, I came across Slavery Footprint, which has a pretty cool interface that allows you to select and customize options, like how much clothing you own, what’s in your bathroom, or what all is in your home.

There’s some limitations to their system, of course (like, what if my clothes are from Goodwill, not the Gap?), but you wind up with a result that estimates your Slavery Footprint. Here’s an image of mine:

The website tells me that this is largely because of my clothes, and to a lesser degree my body wash. I imagine that if the technology questions were more nuanced, that my estimate would be higher. I scored 40, and thus far, the average user is at 24. Yikes!

This is a pretty cool site for raising awareness, but I wonder if that awareness leads to any changed behavior. It probably won’t for me (and I’m someone who used to refuse to shop at places that I knew supported child labor or poor wages), and the “Take Action” focuses mostly on sharing the information via social networking sites, downloading an app, and earning “Free World” points by sending notes to companies through an app.

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