FairTrade

Call it conscious capitalism or just good business, but these five companies have all prospered in every measure over the last decade by doing good for their employees, suppliers, customers or the general public.

Take a look at the receipts in your wallet. They show what you paid for the items you bought, but what's missing are the true costs -- to people and the environment. But, good news: Sustainable and fair trade products don't have to cost you more. Consider, for example, a banana ...

You might not yet have heard of "B corporations" -- these companies with the dual missions of boosting social good and generating profits are a relatively new idea. But thanks to a recent California decision to make that social mission legally binding, the idea is poised to really take off.

More Americans are waking up to the idea of citizen consumerism -- a fitting topic on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when our thoughts turn to social consciousness. Could the concept of making more of our purchases purposeful go mainstream in the same way that the green buying movement has?

Starbucks' announcement today that it was launching its own fairly-traded coffee label, "Shared Planet," had me buzzing. My favorite coffee roaster is a local company called Stumptown Coffee, and one of the reasons I love the coffee so much is that I can trust the business' founder to deal fairly...