Business Philosophy

Ekovekotin wants to be one of the many streams that contribute to steering the consumption behaviour of this planet’s inhabitants into a more sustainable direction.

The natural environment of our globe is in an alarming condition and people’s consumption surpasses our planet’s capacity. Only significant changes in people’s lifestyles and industries’ ways of producing consumer goods can trigger changes large enough to preserve our planet in a viable condition for future generations.

In addition to being ecologically sustainable, it should be self-evident that any human action should also be ethically sustainable, respectful to the people working in the supply chain and protective of animals’ welfare. Unfortunately, this is alarmingly often not the case. In this respect humankind has a lot to improve. It benefits no-one if somebody’s wellbeing is built on another’s oppression.

All too often the origin and manufacturing conditions of consumer goods are hidden from consumers in the depths of the production chain and – entwined in the meanders of daily life – people are also frequently too busy and otherwise occupied to ask any questions.

It can be hard work to investigate the backgrounds of products, as we can attest to based on our own investigations. Many times a manufacturing company’s home base is not the same as the location of production, products are frequently assembled from intermediate products possibly originating from different countries and companies often complement their own product range with products from other companies without this being specifically stated etc. In the end, it can be quite impossible to retrace the origin and the manufacturing conditions of a final product.

Based on our experience, resellers and producers are usually quite willing to disclose what they know about the background of their products when asked. If you don’t get any answer, that is also an answer. For this reason, we would like to encourage you to take an active stance and ask for background information. A product’s price can usually tell you a lot. A very inexpensive price relative to comparable products on the market usually indicates low production costs, meaning that workers have not necessarily received adequate payment for their work or other benefits that should belong to them, and that environmental regulations have not been followed. One should keep in mind that everything in life has a price, at least in a commercial context.

The good news is that we have investigated as well as possible the backgrounds of the products we sell and have only accepted products into our selection that are judged to be sufficiently sustainable based on the results of our investigations. We can assure you that for every product offered in our online store at least ten products of the same type have been rejected for one reason or another. We will tell you everything we know about the products in the product descriptions. We want to be transparent. However, our products or their background information are not always perfect. We have made compromises where we have deemed the product to be of greater benefit to a consumer who values ​​a sustainable lifestyle than the harm that a possible small deficiency in the product or its background information may cause. The origin of small parts of larger products, e.g. some screws, may be unknown or sometimes the manufacturer does not want to reveal all the details about their products for competitive reasons. We try to avoid all artificial substances in the products, but in e.g. cast iron appliances used in food processing, artificial paint or varnish on the surface protects the product from rusting. However, these hand-operated devices replace electric or fossil fuel-powered devices and are of high quality and long-lasting, so their benefit is obvious. However, we have often asked producers to remove unnecessary substances from their products, as in the case of e.g. outdoor tools, where the protective varnish or paint would wear off over time and only end up in nature. Check out our product descriptions and decide for yourself!

Before you consider purchasing our products, however, first think about whether the product is really necessary for you. You may often find a similar product at home, or if there is no constant need for the product, you could perhaps borrow it from somewhere for temporary use. Or could it be found in a good second-hand condition? Even an ecologically and socially responsible product consumes resources and energy, so if the product is unnecessary for the purchaser, so was its strain on the environment. However, if you think that one of our products could be of help to you in your everyday life, we can assure you that we have done our best to offer you environmentally friendly and responsibly produced products.