In 2006, at my Father’s apartment in India, my view of the world and my place in it changed forever.

I’d just watched a heart-wrenching piece on BBC World News about the Maldives disappearing with a rising ocean. And, almost immediately after the same channel being quite dismissive of global warming and the risks. The scene set I was easy prey for a gripping book, fictional suspense and intrigue that told of a cunning and daring story of terrorists that had exaggerated global warming to blow stuff up and make off with a fortune.

A couple of days later, on a call to a friend, I uttered the fateful words “I’m not so sure about global warming”, to which my friend spat the words "don’t be such a bloody idiot Vip, even David Attenborough has said publicly that it’s real and manmade”.

Mortified and embarrassed at my ignorance, I enrolled in an Open University Environment course. (And, of course, I’ve never ventured near another of climate denier Michael Crichton’s books)

What I learned within a week of the course horrified me. That the state of our world was far worse than ‘just’ global warming and the enormity of the consequences felt almost impossible to comprehend. And the lifestyle and ‘success’ I dreamt of was exactly what was wrong with our world and society. 
 
First there was the shock at how few people were aware of the environmental and societal problems, let alone scale and gravity of them. And then it was obvious that, even when they do understand the problem, it was almost impossible to know what or how to do anything about it. 
 
But I also realized that while the consequences are wickedly complex, the cause is, as is often the case, quite simple to trace, if difficult to address. And, so, I turned my attention to this, ultimate, challenge: how do we show people the real world in a way that motivates them to make different choices, ones that fly in the face of the last half century of consumerism we’d all been conditioned with.

How do we create a space between the advertising, the stimulus, and the impulse to buy stuff we don’t need, our response? A pause long enough to give us a chance to, genuinely, make our own choice.

And how do we do this on a global scale?

And Spaice was born. The retail site you’re on now is the first part of my solution. Part of a group of social enterprises that will make our lives richer and better by letting everyone of us choose. No marketing manipulation or suggestions that make us crave stuff that we pay for by working even harder to make someone else even richer.

“Does this manufacturer respect the things that are important to me?” That’s the question this site asks of you. No one will tell you what to do or think, it’s a choice entirely in our power, between us and our own conscience with no judgement from anyone else.

Giving us the power back. Unprecedented transparency of the ‘stuff’ we buy, showing its true costs, so we can make informed decisions on who gets and deserves our hard-earned money.