Every second brand today claims to be sustainable. Vegan footwear doesn't necessarily mean sustainable. Paper straws are quoted with plastic inside. Organic is a loosely tossed around word without much legal implication. Today, greenwashing is more rampant than deforestation (or maybe not, but still!).
Hence, we have created a tool for you to ask the correct questions and assess for yourself whether a product is truly sustainable or not. No more falling prey to opportunistic brands that are tarnishing this positive movement.
But before we get to the tool, let's understand a concept in the discipline of Sustainability known as Life Cycle Thinking.
Life Cycle Thinking essentially is a process to assess the impact of the product across all its life stages.
Products have an impact on the planet at each and every stage, contrary to the common focus on packaging or end of life. In some cases, owing to multiple processes happening at various factories around the world, the carbon footprint of transportation is the highest. Or in other cases, material extraction, as in the case of mining, has the highest adverse impact.
Hence it's important to assess the larger picture, without blindly giving in to any claims.
The Conscious Consumption Guide has been created to assist you in just that; understand the impact of the product in a holistic fashion.
There are various listed parameters at each stage. Your product can either end up on the green for a parameter or in the red. You may not be able to ascertain a few due to lack of information. If that's generally the case for most parameters for a product, then overall it's not a good sign as the company is lacking transparency.
Go on, pick any product and see for yourself!
Sonika Choudhury
( India )