Speaking like a true pedestrian, do you recommend any brands of Pokémon-based products that source their goods ethically?

That depends on what you’re looking for, anonymous. “Pokémon-based products” is a term that spans quite a lot of categories, from food and other basic essentials to cosmetics. In some cases, it even covers things you would never think involve pokémon at all, including building materials and electronics.

So allow me to offer a few tips that can help you choose better in general:

• For cosmetics and other hygiene products, look for a buneary face on the label. This is a logo that indicates the product is either guaranteed to contain ethically sourced pokémon materials or guaranteed to have never been tested on pokémon (or both). If you’d like a few suggestions for brands to look at in particular, both Flower Veil and Persim carry products that don’t use pokémon at all in their production, and Flower Veil has a commitment to using ecofriendly methods (that it actually upholds).

• When it comes to clothing, avoid leather, including faux leather. While actual leather comes from either miltank or cows (and is thus highly controversial for obvious reasons), faux leather is terrible for the environment, so it’s not worth it. Instead, choose ecofriendly fabrics such as hemp or wool. Mareep wool, contrary to what Plasma may have you believe, is perfectly fine as a material. It’s gathered by trimming mareep, not by cutting off their skins, and the mareep are typically treated well throughout the process (as mareep wool must be gathered by hand while keeping the mareep calm and happy to avoid accidentally charging the wool with dangerous levels of electricity). Shearing a mareep is also necessary for its overall health (as it is with the mundane sort of sheep), so buying wool supports not only ethical farmers but also the actual care of a flock of mareep. The same could be said for whimsicott cotton, actually. 

• However, if you’re looking for a simpler solution than looking at the materials tag, anything that calls itself fair trade is usually a good bet. Offhand, Valerie Aino is perhaps the most well-known designer brand that commits itself to sourcing its materials ethically and using sustainable and humane (that is, to its human workers) practices.

• For food, look for anything labeled with “free range,” “organic,” or “soft gathered.” The latter term refers to the practice of soft-gathering, or keeping a pokémon calm and gathering products or materials from it with its permission. This is particularly important for tropius fruit, but it’s also often used in reference to combee honey and moo moo milk too. Surprisingly, ShuppepsiCo is among the brands on this list, as is, of course, Moo Moo Farms.

• For items for pokémon, you’ll want to look, yet again, for a logo. In this case, a togepi stamp usually indicates that the product meets the standards for ethical production. This is particularly important for pokémon shampoos (to indicate they weren’t tested on pokémon or use ethically sourced berries) and pokémon food (to indicate that any pokémon-based ingredients was collected humanely). Staryu & Charmander and Leppa Brand are both among the larger brands out there, but there is quite a list. Just about the only one I would never recommend is Brown Bouffalant, which has quite a few horror stories attached to where its materials come from.

• As for the more … obscure categories under the “ethically sourced pokémon-based products” category, standard labels vary from country to country, but generally speaking, if it says “inspected by [insert your government body of product inspections here” followed by “cleared [date],” that means it met the standards of production.