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.
“Change the world, one brand at a time”
