Read headline "Think before you spend" and then, drawing on material covered in this subject, Accounting Theory, identify some ways in which you think corporations would respond to such allegations.

Here are some of the products "The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping" believes we should think about before buying:

Beverages: Maxwell House. One of the thousands of familiar brands ----Bird's, Jacobs, Ritz and Toblerone are others--- owned by tobacco giant Philip Morris of Marlboro cigarette fame, which recently changed its name to Altria.

It denies to this day that smoking is addictive, was fined for failing to disclose political donations and was one of George Bush's largest corporate campaign contributors.

Clothing: Nike trainers. Nike is said to have petitioned the Indonesia government for exemption from the minimum wage and has been accused of lying about labour conditions at its contractor factories.

According to Sweatshop Watch, an average Nike worker would need to put in 72,000 years of work to receive what Tiger Woods gets for one five-year contract to publicise the brand.

Food: Tiger prawns. Hugely popular nowadays in restaurants and supermarkets, tiger prawns are mostly raised in man-made pools in Bangladesh and the Philippines.

It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of prawn meat and the chemical additives to promote rapid growth ends up polluting the surrounding farming land.

People are routinely displaced to make way for these farms. Rape and murder have been reported in some cases.

Sport: Snooker cues. Thousands of snooker cues are made every year using wood from the Indonesian ramin tree. The ramin, which is also used for furniture and window blinds, is a rare and endangered tree listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, but continues to be logged illegally at an alarming rate.

(Irish Independent, 1 December 2004, Independent Newspapers Ireland Ltd)