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Q If I buy expensive clothes, will they be more ethical?

A If only it were that easy. Trading Topshop for Monsoon will do little for your ethical reputation, I’m afraid. You might feel better about it, sensing that your purchase will last longer and will have been made in a superior garment factory, but the chances are that its background will be similar to anything on the high street.

Unless you’re prepared to go all the way, and to blow your monthly budget on seriously high-end goods that cost thousands of pounds and are handcrafted in Italy, there’s no connection between retail prices and labour conditions, says Martin Hearson, the campaigns co-ordinator at the clothes charity Labour Behind the Label.

He believes that focusing on the price tag is a misleading way to read between the lines of the fashion industry. “Yes, there’s a problem of pushing suppliers into creating goods for ever cheaper prices,” he says. “But you might find, for example, that garments sold in high street chain stores and those sold in designer shops are made in the same factory in China.”

This is similar to the stance taken by Dana Thomas in her book Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre (Penguin £20). She argues that standards are slipping as the demand for luxury goods grows. Few designer labels maintain the sort of production standards that you might expect.

So if we can’t use price as a guideline, how should we shop for clothes? Hearson’s advice is to carry on buying from the shops you like, but to make sure that you become an active consumer. Ask questions. Find out where the clothes have been made, where the raw materials came from, and if the company has signed up to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ethicaltrade.org). But before you start laying into the sales assistant, do your homework by browsing labourbehindthelabel.org/resources.

Q How bad is it to go on a cruise?

A Pretty bad. Especially if you partake in what Justin Francis, the founder of responsibletravel.com , calls a “double carbon whammy”, which is when you take a flight to reach your cruise ship.

Sorry if this means reassessing your holiday plans, but to book a cruise is most certainly not an eco-alternative to flying.

Let’s take a look at the figures for the leading cruise ship company Carnival (carnival.com) from its annual environmental report last year.

It revealed that a passenger on one of its ships would emit an average of 401g of CO2 per kilometre, even more if the ship is not travelling at full capacity. This is three times that of someone travelling on a Boeing 747; more than 30 times that of a Eurostar traveller.

Yes, we are talking luxury liners here, with casinos and spas on board (whose energy demands are included in these figures), so it’s fair to expect that your average trip to Dunkirk on a P&O ferry with nothing more than a buffet bar will leave you with a lighter carbon footprint.

Ferries may be acceptable, but cruise ships have a bad reputation for gobbling resources. According to the Bluewater Network, an American environmental charity and a division of Friends of the Earth, a one-week voyage on a typical cruise ship generates 210,000 gallons of sewage and 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water (bluewaternetwork.org). It campaigns to tighten laws on the dumping of untreated waste into the ocean, particularly in sensitive marine environments such as the Antarctic.

The main thing that turns me off being a captive on a floating hotel is the lack of interaction with the places you visit. There’s usually only a few hours in each destination to sample local foods, explore the culture and invest in local infrastructures. Then it’s back on board to line the pockets of the casino.

Greenie points

DO IT

Perfume is often synthetic and mass-produced, but Le Labo, a New York fragrance brand (lelabofragrances.com), aims to create quality scent, with money spent on fine ingredients rather than advertising. It is also reducing its impact by using green energy, recyclable packaging and launching a bottle-recycling scheme. Take Le Labo bottles back to Liberty in London to be recycled, or refilled.

CLICK IT

Think of a Corona beer bottle. Now turn it on its head and imagine it as a wine glass. The designer Andy Martin has transformed a wide range of bottles discarded by pubs and restaurants in London’s West End into stylish goblets and glasses. The full range is on sale at eco online store ecoutlet.co.uk (from £3.50 each), including Coca-Cola tumblers and cobalt-blue mineral water glasses.

SKIP IT

When the National Consumer Council investigated “rip-off mineral water”, it found that one in five people was “too scared” to ask for tap water in a restaurant. Which explains why Britons consume 3 billion litres of bottled water a year. It’s time to take a stand. Call a waiter over, smile, and ask for a glass of eau de tap.

BLOG-WATCH

This week’s blog subject concerned my quest to find a replacement for my ropey old bike.

Having hung on to it for far too long, I have decided to invest in a new one. Or at least, secondhand new. It’s either that or to sit tight until the free bicycle hire scheme, announced by the mayor, Ken Livingstone, comes into force in 2010.

But buying a bike is a complicated business. Even after brushing up on the different models and their functions in Cycling to Work: a Beginner’s Guide , (Green Books), by Rory McMullan, I still don’t feel ready to brave a bike shop. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, so I asked on the blog...

Rob wrote in to say that he recommends a fold-up bike (try strida.co.uk). “Good quality, great to ride and I can keep it indoors when I get to work,” he says.

Trumping my efforts to recycle by going for a secondhand bike, Hedgewizard reveals that he has his son on a fusion of two old bikes, one picked up from freecycle.org, welded together to form what they call the Frankenbike.

ANGEL

At last someone has spoken out about the ungreen habits of the film industry. Admitting that it is “unbelievably wasteful,” the actress Emma Thompson, with Alistair McGowan, has launched the Green Screen London scheme, aiming to cut its carbon emissions. How long before someone sorts them out with a solar-powered trailer?

DEVIL

To eradicate friends who might lead her astray after a stint in rehab, the model Sophie Anderton announced that she had thrown her mobile phone into the Thames. Didn’t she know that she could have disposed of unsavoury contacts by recycling it at any Orange shop in the UK (http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/recycling)?

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