entity

CoGo

Also known as: Connecting Good, Conscious Consumers

Facts (21)

Sources

Digital consumer activism: Agency and commodification in the digital ... ephemerajournal.org ephemera 21 facts

claimCoGo avoids agential evanescence by drawing consumers into an ongoing relationship with CoGo campaigns, unlike the delete campaigns examined in the study.

claimCoGo institutionalizes the sale of information generated by ethical consumers, thereby contributing to the capitalist digital economy.

claimCoGo awards symbols or 'badges' aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to businesses and products that demonstrate a commitment to respecting people, the planet, and animals.

claimCoGo generates income by registering and accrediting businesses and by supplying those businesses with consumer data.

perspectiveCoGo's strategy of recalibrating consumption agency as data aligns with the digital economy's tendency to produce the consumer through the commodification of information.

accountCoGo (Connecting Good) is a New Zealand-based group established as a registered charity in 2010 under the name Conscious Consumers to identify and accredit ethical traders in the hospitality industry.

claimCoGo's 'impact framework' advises businesses on meeting social and environmental sustainability measures and awards them 'badges' as they make practice improvements.

claimThe CoGo business model combines business accreditation with app-based consumer membership to function as a broker of information and data.

claimCoGo is an accredited benefit corporation that operates using a business model focused on consumer-oriented change.

perspectiveCoGo and its members cannot escape the commodification of the data they generate.

perspectiveCoGo represents a less contestatory form of consumer activism because it reduces social movements to the act of shopping in specific locations and the relinquishing of personal spending data.

claimThe monetization of CoGo user data results in the commodification of user identity.

claimCoGo promotes its mobile application using the slogan 'ethical living made easy' and characterizes the act of downloading the app as 'joining the movement'.

claimCoGo's data collection practices allow it to connect with digital economy companies that seek consumer data, while also enabling CoGo to provide consumers with the ability to shape business ethics.

measurementBy 2022, the New Zealand-based group CoGo expanded its accreditation operations beyond the hospitality industry to include market sectors such as food retail, fashion, and transport.

claimIn the case studies of #grabyourwallet and CoGo, the logics of accumulation within the digital economy are either hidden or treated as a tactic to be exploited, rather than addressing the ethical problems produced by the digital economy itself.

perspectivePolitical agency within the CoGo model is defined as an amorphous ethics of market choice.

claimCoGo moralizes the conventional practices of corporate data brokerage by committing to consent, privacy, and transparency, and by refraining from personalizing consumer information.

claimCoGo mines data from user purchases at registered businesses to provide reports to those businesses regarding the spending and values profiles of their customers, as well as aggregate market activity information.

claimCoGo provides a business-based and institutionalized approach to digital consumer activism, though its effectiveness is limited by an ideology of consumer choice.

accountCoGo launched a UK branch and a UK-based app in 2018, coinciding with the group's rebranding in both the UK and New Zealand under the name Connecting Good (CoGo).