The member organizations are politically independent and work in the common interest, i.e. they represent no particular interest group.

The Coalition

• monitors and raises vital consumer issues
• focuses on consumption of goods and services, its motives and consequences, as well as consumers’ potential to bring about positive change
• informs, generates opinion and coordinates campaigns
• works to increase consumers’ influence.

The organization shall work to assert and defend the rights of consumers as stated in the UN. Guidelines for Consumer Protection and to represent consumers and consumers’ interests. We also strive to achieve a more reasonable and just distribution of global resources internationally as well as in Sweden, and we assert the right to consumption as is necessary to maintain a healthy life.

The Swedish Consumer Coalition asserts the right of all consumers to a wholesome environment and to a fundamental quality of life, as well as to good quality in the goods and services provided by the private and public sectors alike. Thus, we emphasize quality over traditionally emphasized issues such as quantity, low prices, greater freedom of choice and short-term material welfare.

Patterns of consumption have a direct bearing on issues of resource management and the distribution of resources between North and South – and thus on the survival of present and coming generations.

Issues relating to food constitute a principal focus in the work of the organization. For a variety of reasons – economy of resource utilization as well as health, animal welfare and environmental concerns – we advocate consumption of vegetable and cereal foodstuffs and a greater reliance on fresh, unprocessed foods, locally grown and produced to the extent practicable.

The Coalition works to achieve ethically acceptable practices in animal husbandry. Animals shall be raised under conditions that spare them from suffering and allow them to obey their natural instincts.

The Coalition works to promote responsible consumption with a view toward good health and adaption to the requirements of ecological cycles. We strive, through mindful consumption, to achieve an ecologically, ethically and socially sound development in the social structure, as well as in production and commerce, at home and abroad.

We regard exaggerated and wrongheaded material consumption as a principal cause of many of the major problems of our time, and we consider a fundamental change of lifestyle necessary if we are to solve those problems. Stimulating new patterns of behaviour so that more and more people act to achieve a viable and sustainable way of life is therefore one of the most vital tasks before us.

We seek to encourage a greater degree of self-suffiency and self-reliance and to preserve vital consumer competence and skills of good housekeeping, and to increase our preparedness to cope with emergencies.

An important task we have before us is to ensure that consumers are given rightful access to adequate and honest information about goods and services, including product claims and point-of-sale information about products’ contents. Consumers shall be also be included in policy- and decision-making processes.

Together, the members of the Coalition possess a wealth of knowledge in a variety of fields, which it is our ambition to share with consumers.

We will work on both international, national and local levels. Local activities will, however, be our prime focus, and the organization of local working groups, having the same potential breadth of interest as the Coalition as a whole, will be given priority. A network to facilitate cooperation in a variety of areas will be established successively.

The Swedish Consumer Coalition seeks to develop dialogues with industry and wholesale/retail firms to voice consumers’ views on the quality, availability and price of goods and services. We will also adress government authorities, political parties and elected officials to put forward consumers’ views and preferences. In addition, we shall seek collaboration with adult education organizations, consumer advisers, community environmental protection authorities and last, but hardly least, the schools.

In sum, The Swedish Consumer Coalition strives

• to strengthen consumers’ influence in society and to gain recognition of the important role consumers play in deciding the direction of social development;
• to ensure the diffusion of vital, non-partisan information and practibal knowledge that help consumers make informed rational and responsible choices, thereby guiding society into an ethically principled, ecologically sound and harmonious course of development.