Many consumers wonder how products are made and what the footprint behind developing, delivering, and purchasing a product is. There are plenty of metrics and tons of information out there tracking a product's journey from conception to shelf, but what information is correct? Different metrics are supported by different companies and organizations. How does a consumer decide if a product is sustainable?
That's where The Sustainability Consortium comes in. As an organization made up of 10 universities, several nonprofits, and eighty international companies, The Consortium aims to create an "end all, be all" metric for measuring product sustainability.
Called the "Ultimate Sustainability Index" by the Scientific American, the metric will be used to evaluate the first 100 products ranging from laundry soap to cereal. The data from the index will be more comprehensive than other developed metrics due to large pressure put on suppliers to make their emissions, waste, resource use, and labor practices public.