Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2010 said it best when they helped introduce GoodGuide to the world –
“Horizon Organic Milk has a worse environmental track record than Nesquik Strawberry Milk? Nature’s Gate Baby Soothing Shampoo is more toxic than Suave for Kids 2 in 1 Shampoo? These and other shocking facts about the products around us are being drilled into consumers thanks to GoodGuide, a startup founded by Dara O’Rourke, a professor of environmental and labor policy at the University of California, Berkeley.”
Just recently GoodGuide got a new best friend. Its name is BrandKarma – a new venue for consumers to rate brands, make suggestions and share opinions (video below). While the site is designed to stimulate dialog around positive and negative brands rather than become a scientific resource for measuring the ‘goodness’ of a product, these two startups are unmistakably similar in their quest to help ‘un-blind’ consumerism one brand (or product) at a time.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ZtwUCee0g]
Today, there are innumerable resources popping up to encourage smarter consumption. Whether we’re talking blogs (unconsumption and FearLess); movements (Slow Food and Slow Money); incubators (Unreasonable Institute); or inspirational networks (TED and PopTech), all of these and countless more are becoming a roaring microphone for positive change.
We thank these ambassadors of good and hope buy positively will help accelerate them in their common goal of making the world undeniably better.