He successfully slipped ethics into magazines. Now Big Issue founder John Bird is hoping to repeat the trick with a loyalty card for local shops. Launched tomorrow, the Wedge Card is an "affinity scheme" which raises money for charities and gives shoppers discounts at dozens of independent businesses.

Customers can buy the card online (Wedgecard.co.uk) for £20, of which half goes to local charities. It then gives special offers and money off at nearly 100 traders including Abel & Cole, Peopletree.com, Green Baby and Foyles bookshop.
Bird believes the card "stands up against" charitable concepts such as the American Express Red credit card, which donates 1% of spends to fight Aids in Africa. "It's the wrong equation. It's commercialising people's desire to help. It's also encouraging people to spend and spend and spend." Rather than being comforted by a tiny percentage of spending going to charity, consumers should look at where they spend their money, he argues. "Local shops keep communities together. If communities don't have shops, they don't feel like communities and they don't look like communities."

The Wedge - meaning money, and a wedge under the hegemony of global corporations - card will be launched on Lamb's Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, central London. It looks posh, he says, but has plenty of ordinary shops and serves a socially mixed community. Marc Kennard, who owns a deli on the street, believes the card will be "a powerful weapon in helping small, local businesses fight the high-street chains".
At first, money from the card will go to two local charities, but in future, customers will be able to choose the charity to benefit from their card, which must be renewed each year. They will also be able to receive details of Wedge businesses via text.

The thin end of the wedge? It is only launched in Bloomsbury, the West End and Southwark so far. But as with the Big Issue, Bird plans to bring it to other cities. Leicester, Liverpool and Stratford, in east London, will get the Wedge card by early next year. "Hopefully it will go global," he says.