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June 15, 2009
An emerging metric: the GoodGuide score
A non-profit website founded and staffed by academics and researchers is scoring consumer products based on health, environmental and social impacts. Based on its purpose and how easy it is to use, GoodGuide could usher in a new metric: social value.
You could say social value is how well a company practices good corporate stewardship, something the typical may not concern himself with in the aisles of Walmart, but early adopters, buzz-spreaders and health-involved purchasers often do. For GoodGuide, good corporate stewardship includes product ingredients free of carcinogens, aren't brought to market via cruel animal testing and whose packaging is environmentally friendly.
For instance, here's how my deodorant, Dry Idea, stacks up on GoodGuide. It scores a 7.4 out of 10. Not bad, but Dry Idea is dinged for containing "controversial ingredients" aluminum zirconium and fragrance.
"Aluminum has long been known to have neurotoxic effects in humans and other animals," GoodGuide says. "Most aluminum used in deodorants and antiperspirants exists in either aluminum salts or aluminum-glycine complexes. Researchers continue to disagree about the risk of aluminum use in deodorants and antiperspirants, particularly the correlation of aluminum and other compounds and cancer in the upper quadrant of the breast near the underarm." Then it cites the research.
Fragrance, GoodGuide says, "is considered a trade secret, which means the company doesn't have to say what's in it - but generally fragrances have strong allergy and immune system toxicity concerns, and they often conceal the presence of toxic phthalates." Both explanations are enough for me to look at, and purchase, the highest-rated product in the category, Tom's of Maine Natural Deodorant. It, too, has "fragrance," but no aluminum, which has always worried me through the years.
"What we’re trying to do is flip the whole marketing world on its head,” says Dara O’Rourke, the University of California professor who launched the site last year. “Instead of companies telling you what to believe, customers are making the statements to the marketers about what they care about.”
The implications of what GoodGuide could mean for not just marketers, but big company culture, could be significant, especially in how people talk about products with one another, especially in families, where consumer product good decisions are often handed down generationally. If the free, non-ad-supported, easy-to-use (and easy to understand) GoodGuide starts showing up in research of big manufacturers of why their market share is suddenly slipping, it probably won't take long for companies to adapt.
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Thanks for the Heads up! Sounds like I can finely do less research on ingredients and products.
Nice to see your metrics-based coverage. over time methinks that more categories of products will be comparable online with a combo of evidence-based research, such as as Good Guide and consumer ratings and reviews.
I first heard about the Good Guide last August when speaking at UC Berkeley's excellent student-run MBA Business Plan contest and a participant came up to proudly tell me about her professor who founded Good Guide so i, too researched it and then wrote about it here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/09/11/buy-the-safest-products-for-you-and-the-world-with-the-help-of-…/
Nice to see your metrics-based coverage. over time methinks that more categories of products will be comparable online with a combo of evidence-based research, such as as Good Guide and consumer ratings and reviews.
I first heard about the Good Guide last August when speaking at UC Berkeley's excellent student-run MBA Business Plan contest and a participant came up to proudly tell me about her professor who founded Good Guide so i, too researched it and then wrote about it here http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/09/11/buy-the-safest-products-for-you-and-the-world-with-the-help-of-…/
Great, now I can't stop looking at this dang site. I can't believe Kraft is ranked higher than my regular cheese! Very interesting. Thanks!
I really enjoyed the article posted regarding harmful ingredients in deodorants. It was very informative, and I believe you are absolutely correct about the negative impact that harmful chemicals can have on our bodies. I have discovered several amazing reports to validate your position, and I think you would find the information fascinating. I would love to discuss this further with you. Please email me at your earliest convenience. One report in particular is very serious in nature and was documented on CNN. I’ll send you a link.
The start-up is a for profit organization.
It is written here: http://www.goodguide.com/about
