We assign two ratings to each product we review:
Customer Experience Rating
The Customer Experience Rating provides transparent information regarding customer product experiences.
To determine this score, we collect verified customer ratings from third-party sites such as Amazon and TrustPilot. We also highlight product features customers love and do not love.
Sustainability Rating
The Sustainable Life rating system provides transparent information on three primary ecological areas of concern to customers—the environment, labor processes, and animals—assessing more than 60 material issues identified by industry experts. Key concerns across each area (the environment, labor, and animals) are discussed as follows:
Environment
- Resource management and disposal
- Energy use and greenhouse gas emissions
- Chemical use and disposal
Labor
- Workers’ rights: Policies protecting workers’ rights with respect to the supply chain, including child labor, forced labor, freedom of association, collective bargaining, non-discrimination, and gender equality
- Living wage
Animals
- Policies protecting animal welfare
- Animal materials (fur, leather, wool, feathers, skins, angora, etc.)
- Animal product traceability to the farm level
The Sustainable Life rating system gathers public information and scores each brand and product against material issues with respect to labor, the environment, and animals. Primary data sources include those from brand and parent company reporting as well as third-party certifications, accreditations, and other standards systems.
Rating Labels
Each product achieves a Customer Experience Score and Sustainability Score ranging from 1 to 5
- 1 (Should Avoid): These brands disclose little to no relevant or concrete information about their sustainability practices.
- 2 (Below Average): These brands disclose brief information touching on one or more areas and consider some material issues but do not yet adequately address the totality of their supply chain impacts.
- 3 (Average): These brands transparently disclose their policies and practices used to manage some material issues across the three highlighted areas.
- 4 (Good): These brands adopt policies and practices to manage various material issues across their supply chain and often demonstrate leadership in one or two areas. They also have strong assurances (relevant certifications from credible standards systems).
- 5 (Great): These brands demonstrate leadership across all three noted areas: the environment, labor, and animals. They typically offer extremely transparent information and possess both strong policies and assurances (e.g., from relevant certifications or standards systems) to address a wide breadth of material issues across their supply chain.