It’s up to each of you to decide what is fair and reasonable in your own life. We’re not here to say “You sir, you get nowt but a potato because that’s all Jim can afford.” We are here to ask you to think about what really matters and what kind of world you want.

If you are running a hospital, refugee center, or wildlife rescue, we hear you. You need more money than other people might. But if you need lots of money because you want to live in a huge house, maybe have a holiday home or two, buy the latest in designer fashion, and fly to the moon for cake: no. You do not need lots of money. People are literally homeless and starving.

Kind of. But we’re not, in any way, trying to stop people from having nice lives. With nice stuff. See the reference to Jim and his potato in “What is fair?”. We’re just trying to make things a little more even. Why should some people have multiple houses when others have nowhere to live? For those of you who are blessed with an extravagant income, it might be about realizing that a modest house and a decent car are enough. For the rest of us, maybe we don’t need to change our phones twice per year. Maybe the smaller TV is perfectly good. Last year’s boots have still got plenty of walking in them.

There is a difference between saving and hoarding. There’s nothing wrong with putting some money aside for the unexpected or preparing for your later years. But if you’re accumulating wealth at the same time that other people are starving, it’s maybe time to do what I had to with my pocket money as a young child: half for me, half for someone else who needs it.

At no point are we suggesting that you give everything away so that another might have more; that would just swap the situation and we’d be in the same bad place we’re in now. All we want is to even things out a little.

We’re all here together. Our lifestyles of accumulation and greed are hurting our fellow humans and destroying this beautiful planet. And whatever some (who could do with taking the pledge themselves) might say, this is the only planet we’ve got. If you really can’t find it in yourself to grieve for a homeless and hungry child, a parent who can’t afford cancer treatment, or our dying earth, then honestly, there’s something wrong with you.

Absolutely. If you’d like to show your support and commitment on your website or on social, please e-mail us at , and we’ll send you a logo badge in whatever file format you prefer.

Of course. This is all very new, but we plan not only to have a section to show the brands, businesses, and individuals who have taken the pledge but also to have posts that feature the stories of our supporters. If you’ve taken the pledge and you want to see yourself here, send us a mail at .

There are a lot of questions and very few real answers. For example, what if a business pays its employees low wages so that it can keep production costs down and pass that savings on to the consumer? Everyone knows that consumers don’t have much to spend. Ignoring the fact that the business owner is probably not keeping his/her/their own wages low, it’s a scenario that’s not possible to unpick without understanding the truth conveyed in the following 4 words: the system is broken.

Consumers don’t have much money to spend because they are paid inadequate wages themselves. They are also caught up in a culture where very few people are willing to pay for what something is genuinely worth in terms of the time, materials, and resources required to produce it. People want things they don’t need. Businesses sell things people don’t need and try to convince their customers to buy them. The almighty dollar/pound/euro/yen/etc. is seen as the ultimate goal, beyond health, happiness, true security, or a functioning, safe world (see Covid).

Until we all recognize and accept that this just isn’t working, there will always be arguments that allow certain people to wiggle out of moral and ethical responsibility. If you want to wiggle, you are part of the problem. But if you’re willing to look at our societies openly and honestly, see what doesn’t work, and think about what you can do to fix it, you are making the solution happen.

So if we didn’t answer your question, we apologize. But before you send it to us anyway, question your motivation. If it’s to carry on making lots of money and have your conscience eased, we can’t help you with that. But if it’s in the service of instigating change and helping us all out of this mess, we’re all ears.

Please do! And thank you, yes. You can start by taking the pledge yourself and using #fairpaypledge to tell your people all about it. Spread the word, gently coerce your friends, help us to make things fairer for everyone. If you’d like to support us in a more formal way, please get in touch via .

People who have had enough. We know what it’s like to be cold, to worry how we’ll pay the bills, to look around in despair at displays of excess amidst poverty and pain. We fear for the future of humanity and for the future of our world. We want to make things better.