Certified
I hope you have had more sustainable shopping success following last week’s blog on measurables. Maybe in all your scrutinising of products you came across some of the certificates we are going to look at today.
As you will know by now, sustainability operates on a spectrum, so when it comes to assessing how eco-friendly a product is, certifications are unlikely to do all the work for us, or tell us, “this is totally sustainable”!
Instead they are there to give us more information, and help us differentiate between better or worse, how more or less sustainable something is. We will still need to use our judgement to decide if that is sustainable enough for us and our goals.
There are many different types of certifications out there for many different things. Two main differences that are important to explain on the outset are third party certificates and in-house certificates.
Third party certification involves, as the name clearly says, an external third party who regulates, inspects, and accredits a product or company.
In-house certification means that a company, or a group of companies, monitor and certificate themselves.
There can be problems with both models, but obviously in-house certification, with no external body being involved, are more likely to be self-serving and susceptible to some sort of corruption and or cover up. That being said, third party certification is often done through licencing, where a company will pay an annual fee to be covered and certified by an external body. In this case that external body is reliant on the licensing fee to make a profit and therefore also susceptible to greed and possible corruption. Generally third party certification is more trustworthy so I have focused on these and not included any in-house examples.
To keep things short and sweet I have selected five certificates below and included a brief description of what they mean. For each I have included the official website link in the image so, if you want to find out more, you can click through to them.
I have done research on each of these certifications to try get an idea of how sustainable and eco-friendly they really are. As it would be too much to included all that data and reasoning I have added a “my eco-rating” on each as a summary of my general feeling about them. Not incredibly scientific I know, but I am the type of person that does lots of research, finds the facts, stews over the info for a while and then goes with my gut feeling when it comes to acting on it.
The Soil Association is a
third party charity that certifies organic goods.
Conditions include:
Fewer pesticides (used as a last resort and only from natural derived sources)
No artificial fertilisers
Higher animal welfare standards
No routine use of anti-biotics
No genetic modification
No artificial colours or preservatives.
My eco-rating: Excellent
Organic is simply great, all around, for the environment.
Just remember to check the packaging as this certification is likely to be for the produce / content only. That being said The Soil Association is also busy working with businesses to increasing the sustainability of organic packaging!
“The Rainforest Alliance certification seal means that the product (or a specified ingredient) was produced by farmers, foresters, and/or companies working together to create a world where people and nature thrive in harmony.“
They work with business to improve:
Forests and biodiversity
Climate
Rural livelihoods
Human rights
My eco-rating: Work in progress
You’ll need to check if the whole product or just certain ingredients are included in the certification and at what percentage (this can range from 30-100% depending on what it is). Although what the Rainforest Alliance stands for is good, it is hard to tell how it is carried out in practice, in terms of what specific sustainability practices are already in place VS still being put into place.
The B Lab believes, “businesses should be used as a force for good.
The B Corp certification is given to corporations that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.”
My eco-rating: Good
This certification is a great idea and gives me a lot of hope for business sustainability and ethics in the future.
However, it’s not perfect. It is not easy to trace exactly how the companies are prioritising the environment and remember this certification is given to the company and not the individual product.
You will still need to judge for yourself product by product. The good news is these companies will probably have clearer information on their packaging, and one would hope that if a company has ticked all the boxes to gain the B Corp certificate that their products are likely to be more sustainable. We can hope… but also remember to check the facts!
Cradle to Cradle is founded on the belief that, “how we design and make products today shapes the world we will inhabit tomorrow.”
Their goal is to encourage production innovation to move from current “cradle to grave” models, where valuable resources end up in landfill, to a more circular model that values resources and keeps them in use.
To do this they evaluate products on the following criteria:
Material Health
Product Circularity
Clean Air & Climate Protection
Water & Soil Stewardship
Social Fairness
My eco-rating: Good
Again, this is a great idea that gives me hope for the future of our planet! This certification is product specific so if the item you are considering has a cradle to cradle logo on it then it has met their standards.
That being said, my concern here is that certain unethical companies could develop a product line that qualifies for the Cradle to Cradle certification, but still carry on producing the rest of their products that are destined for landfill on mass. This is a type of Greenwashing that is subtle (and devious) which I personally feel compelled to take a stand against. However, I acknowledge that I can be quite an all or nothing person and some people are more ok with shades of grey than me.
The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is, “the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire supply chain.”
This means they evaluate the whole process from harvesting of raw materials through to manufacturing and labelling.
My eco-rating: Great
Got to love organic fibres!
There are quite a few other certifications out there when it comes to textiles and specifically cotton, but this one is the cream of the crop. Products that are GOTS certified will be clearly labelled with the percentage of fibres that are organic, as well as a reference code that you can use to look up your item on their database. Talk about transparency.
There it is! A brief run down of five certifications that could help you make more sustainable product choices. There are many more out there and if you are keen to read more about the ins and outs, the pros and cons, I recommend checking out this blog and the video below. Both are by a wonderful woman called Gittemary who is such an inspiration and fun to learn from. Check her out!