Every day there seems to be a new certification cropping up and they all seem to want to convince us that the product it’s slapped onto is super sustainable. It might seem that a label certifying a product might take some of the guesswork out of making suggestions, but that hasn’t been the case at all.
Ever since we began considering the sustainability of design choices there have been hurdles to understanding what the vendor’s claims mean and how they relate. In the earliest days of the industry trying to figure out the most important issues, there were egregious cases of “green-washing” making manufacturer claims subject to a fair amount of skepticism. Thus the need or some sort of proof of those claims became absolutely necessary. But before anyone could get too comfortable with expertly marketed “green” labels, it became evident that the proliferation of certificates and certifications labels were not all created equal. How is a professional supposed to be able to keep up with all of the relevant issues on each of the products? The task is daunting, to be sure.
If only there was some kind of cheat sheet…
Beginning to understand all of these labels might be streamlined with a causal grouping. Let’s start by sorting the major ones into four buckets: Single attribute, multi attribute, transparency tools and certifying labels.