What's a procott?

A procott (flip side of boycott) is a movement to support the production and purchase of earth-friendly and justice-friendly goods and services.

Community Education
Imagine if a year from now our community was home to a number groups of a dozen people each meeting monthly to consider their consumer decisions and habits. In these meetings we'd discuss where to purchase essential goods and services, ranging from daily necessities like food and clothing to discretionary items like restaurants and movies, from professional services for legal or medical help to major purchases like a car or home.

We'd exchange ideas and mutual support about our consumer lives in an open dialogue and without judging one another's choices. We might each make a personal commitment to try to achieve a certain percentage of next month's expenses to go toward earth/justice friendly purchases. Then next month we'd compare notes and offer support. Perhaps we'd invite a local growers' cooperative to speak about their organic produce. These gatherings would be fun, social as well as educational, and especially not confrontational. We would begin with an understanding of the different life circumstances from which everyone operates as we start to make these changes in our habits as consumers.

Collective Action
Imagine that a representative from each of these groups would meet quarterly in a council representing all the community groups in order to work on criteria for earth/justice friendly goods and services and to review the choices available to local consumers. Perhaps a sub-committee of this group would be the ones to interview businesses about joining the procott. We'd then develop a list of local and mail order retailers and service providers who uphold earth/ justice-friendly values.

Intercommunity Alliances
We'd circulate this list in a booklet and on a web page. Over time we'd develop alliances with other communities who are organizing in similar ways. Once groups like this were operating in multiple communities there'd be an opportunity to organize regionally to put pressure on producers and on city and state governments to consider the concerns of conscious consumers. We'd have a collective voice once we could demonstrate that we represent a growing number of activist consumers who exercise our spending power for earth/justice friendly results. We could then entertain broader initiatives like collective purchasing clubs, car-sharing co-ops and local currencies.

Earth/Justice Friendly Criteria
How might we begin to accomplish these visions? We could develop a set of criteria for what constitutes earth/justice friendly goods and services. Examples of categories of concern include friendliness to women, earth, labor, African-American, Latina/o, LGBT, the global south (from African, Asian and Latin producers), peace, children, low income, local, disabled, animal rights and vegan enterprises. Measures of friendliness could include regard for the type of ownership and management, inclusiveness, labor practices, production conditions, use of recycled materials, accessibility, friendliness, etc.

Partnerships with Businesses
With this set of criteria we would develop a questionnaire enabling determination of earth and justice friendliness of any particular business. Recognizing that no business will be perfect, we could evaluate our selections on a continuum of one to five stars for each area of concern. This would allow consumers to select their purchases based on specific interests while acknowledging the diverse concerns of others. For those stores and services deemed friendly we, as consumers, would pledge to support their business with our dollars and our encouragement of others to shop there. In return we'd ask them to consider the concerns we might have regarding areas of not-so-friendliness arising from their response to our questionnaire.

Enlightened Production
On the retail level we would urge store owners and service providers to promote their business as earth-friendly and justice-friendly by placing a graphic in their window noting that they belong to this network. Once a critical mass of support is achieved for this practice in other communities, producers might consider changing their production, especially if organized consumers and retailers make such demands in return for monetary support.

Heart and soul
This is the heart and soul of Procott practice - sharing our lives as citizen consumers in supportive, nonjudgmental gatherings and empowerment through collective action to bring our purchasing choices in alignment with our values.