Ethical consumerism, once dismissed as a fad, has now become a multi-billion dollar industry. A recent survey by the British newspaper The Observer found that more than half of respondents seek out “ethically sound” products. The sweatshop backlash of the 1990s against many multinational companies has now crystallised into engaged consumption.

In the light of this more caring consumption, shoppers may also see the link between bribes and brands. If they are voting with their wallets on other social issues, they could also be valuable allies in the fight against graft.

The founders of Corruption Inc. think so. Launched earlier this year, Corruption Inc. is a new scheme of anti-corruption pacts in Brazil, with the aim of encouraging consumers to make corporations change their ways. The 200 companies participating in the scheme – including companies such as Nestlé – will be identifiable to customers through a “clean company” logo. Firms enter into an ‘integrity pact’, whereby they agree to establish internal compliance mechanisms and adhere to strict ethical rules.

In a country whose leaders have been the target of recent corruption allegations, Corruption Inc. makes sure the consumer knows if a particular company is in any way a part of that corruption.

“People are sick and tired of this situation,” says Caros Lins da Silva, the director of the Brazilian government relations firm Patria, “If consumers are convinced that they can be a factor in ruling out corruption then they will act.”

To be part of the scheme, companies are required to train their employees and suppliers in transparency measures and allow their affairs to be externally checked. They are required to adhere to strict rules on hospitality and gift-giving, and to disclose their financial contributions to political parties.

The consumer’s role in the scheme is also vital. In fact, the success of the scheme is premised on the fact that consumers can make a difference. By indicating a preference for clean companies through their buying power, shoppers can send a clear message to companies that hits them where it hurts the most…in declining sales. If the benefits of paying a bribe were outweighed by the resulting plumetting sales, there would be no attraction in greasing palms.

The Foreign Policy Association notes on its website that Corruption Inc. seeks to give customers “ownership over the choices they make”. But consumers’ choices are becoming increasingly complex as companies’ advertising messages become more complicated. In the 1980s, Silk Cut cigarettes were famous for their abstract and seemingly meaningless adverts, but since then branding has only become more baffling. A strange, delicate relationship forms between consumer and brand, but it puts the product at risk when scandal hits. Loyalty can be “shallow enough to turn on a dime”, writes Naomi Klein in her 2000 book No Logo.

“Multinationals such as Nike, Microsoft and Starbucks have sought to become chief communicators of all that is good and cherished in our culture,” she said in her book.

“But the more successful this project is, the more vulnerable these companies become. When they do wrong, their crimes are not dismissed as the misdemeanours of another corporation trying to make a buck.”

The value of a company’s reputation is a major argument for businesses complying with anti-bribery codes. If customers are becoming more engaged, it is in the corporations’ interests not only to be clean, but to be seen as such. Corporations know this: Every multinational now has a section of its website labelled “corporate social responsibility” (CSR).

In many ways, this proliferation of internal codes of conduct is a victory for public engagement with producers. Civil society organisations including TI have long recognised the role of this kind of regulation. In an article for corporate responsibility website www.responsiblepractice.com, TI founder Peter Eigen explains the Business Principles for Countering Bribery set up in conjunction with multinationals such as British Petroleum.

“The proposals include training programmes with guidance for all employees to ensure that bribery - direct or indirect - is outlawed,” he writes.

“Under the guidelines of another NGO project, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), participating companies are asked to describe their policies and procedures for addressing corruption, including how the organisation meets the requirements of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention.”

On their own, internal codes run the risk of merely being another layer of public relations, yet another face of the brand. But in conjunction with external legislation such as the OECD convention, they can not only change corporate behaviour but make clear to the public the ethical obligations behind the logos.

Nevertheless, consumerism can be a brittle tool for social progress. Despite all the evidence of a surge in ethical shopping, consumers are inevitably lazy and bargain-driven. According to Jenny Dawkins, author of a 2003 report from Market & Opinion Research International (MORI) on public perceptions of corporate accountability, “Although 84 percent of customers surveyed felt CSR would influence their buying decisions, only five percent consistently buy brands on ethical grounds.”

Following its own survey The Observer came to similar conclusions, naming this kind of half-committed shopper the “conscious consumer”.

Meanwhile the ethical mantra does not seem to have penetrated certain elements of consumerism, areas that some consumer surveys do not investigate. The public’s carefree attitude towards counterfeit goods is a good example. Paying US $10 instead of US $500 for a Louis Vuitton bag is still seen by many shoppers as a victimless crime.

Although more often linked by the media to drug rings and terrorism, the distribution of fake goods is mired in bribery. TI spoke to Tim Phillips, author of Knockoff: the Deadly Trade in Counterfeit Goods. Phillips met an ex-Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) agent who now investigates counterfeiting on behalf of Western brands.

“His problem is that Russia’s crime gangs routinely offer bribes – he estimates the going rate is around US $50 000 – to customs officials, police and prosecutors,” says Phillips.

“So goods pass uninspected, evidence is mysteriously lost and prosecutions are dropped. There's little incentive to resist the bribes: wages for public officials are relatively low, and if you don't take the cash, your colleague or your boss will.”

According to Phillips, the counterfeiting investigator pays bribes himself, although he does not make clear to whom. But Phillips believes the brands themselves can be complicit in this system. “He doesn’t explicitly tell his American and European paymasters what he is doing, but they don’t ask.”

“This type of institutional corruption contributes heavily towards the current regime of tolerance towards counterfeiting”, he says, “because until the culture is challenged there’s no hope that organised counterfeiting will be eliminated or even constrained.”

“Consumers can see that counterfeiting is clearly tolerated by brand owners, police and prosecutors everywhere in the world.”

A 2005 Gallup poll for the OECD found that 45 percent of people think corrupt law enforcement officials does not equate for piracy or counterfeiting. The same survey found that one in eight American citizens had bought counterfeit products in the previous year, more than half of whom were aware that those products were counterfeit before buying them.

Convenience and low prices will always drive a hard bargain, even if there has been an ethical drift of late. But there is undoubtedly hope. The 2004 Co-operative Bank report Who are the Ethical Consumers? revealed one in five customers are active enough to reflect their concerns in their shopping habits, “if the issues are obvious, and the necessary information readily available”. Every customer is different, and brings to the shops a web of information gleaned from disparate sources: their friends and family; the media and the connotations of those taglines. The ethical message just has to make itself heard above that noise.

But a company’s reputation can rest on a knife-edge, and with enough publicity around corporate misdemeanours, consumers will stab them in the back. Corruption can be fought with a credit card. Just do it.