Good On You brand ratings give consumers and businesses the power to make better choices about the brands they engage with by scoring brands for their transparency and impact across a five-point scale ranging from “We Avoid” to “Great”. Good On You uses publicly available data to do this and covers three key pillars: planet, people and animals. This article gives an introductory overview of Good On You’s rating system.
Why Good On You rates brands
Good On You uses the power of people’s choices to help create a more sustainable future. We believe brands have a responsibility to be transparent about their impact, and our ratings help people understand how well brands are doing this.
Our vision is strongly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 12: “Ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns”. Our recognised and trusted rating system, advice, and information are a part of this global mission, leading the way towards more sustainable and fair industries.
By making it easy for consumers and retailers to choose better, we help to reward brands that are meeting consumers’ sustainability aspirations and send a strong signal to the industry to increase the pace of positive change. Every sale lost by less ethical brands is an incentive to improve and a step towards protecting people, animals, and the planet.
Our brand sustainability ratings incentivise businesses to improve the quantity and quality of their sustainability communications and to examine and improve practices across their supply chain.
Since Good On You was launched in 2015, brands have been updating their communications and their production and distribution practices directly in response to their published Good On You rating. We support brands to do so by offering Good Measures, a sustainability hub that helps brands of all sizes understand their impacts, get tailored guidance on where to focus, and easily update their rating.
Brand types rated by Good On You
Good On You rates brands across several industry verticals: fashion, beauty, general services, and multi-brand retailers.
We rate consumer-facing brand entities. For brands that are owned by a parent company, we also include the parent company’s disclosures in rating assessments.
Good On You selects and rates brands on its own initiative without requiring a brand's consent, application, or participation. Brands can request to be rated, and they can engage with the Good Measures platform but the decision to rate and the rating outcome are determined solely by Good On You in accordance with its published selection criteria and methodology. Consumers can submit requests for brands to be rated, and businesses engaging with Good On You for its B2B data services can also submit requests.
Find out more about brand types and classifications.
Why we rate at a brand-level, not product-level
The true impact of a product is embedded in the practices of the brand that makes it. That’s why Good On You assesses brands on their business’s overall impact, rather than at a product level.
In the Good On You ratings process, we consider all relevant product-level standards, certifications, and material choices as we assess each brand to inform a broad picture of the business’s practices.
We believe this holistic approach best helps consumers and businesses make the most informed decisions about the brands they trust and support.
It’s also common for brands that aren’t taking enough action to minimise their impact to market a small selection of so-called “better” products (often labelled as “conscious” or “eco” lines) to boost their overall image and give consumers the impression they are doing more than they actually are, while the bulk of the business continues selling products with no positive features. This is a form of greenwashing.
Issues covered by Good On You ratings
Good On You methodology covers three pillars.
Planet
We consider each brand’s resource use and disposal, energy use and carbon emissions, impacts on water, and chemical use and disposal.
People
We look at a brand’s impact on workers across the supply chain. This includes policies and practices on child labour, forced labour, worker safety, freedom of association (the right to join a union), and payment of a living wage. We also consider the brand’s supplier relationships and auditing practices.
Animals
We identify the use of fur, angora, down feather, shearling, karakul, and exotic animal skin and hair. We also consider wool use including mulesing, and whether and how the brand uses leather.
For each of these pillars we also consider whether brands are taking positive steps, such as providing industry leadership on issues, or whether they engage in “negative citizenship”, such as lobbying against legislation to increase transparency or reduce harm.
See an overview of the issues assessed in the methodology across different verticals
Information Sources
Good On You’s ratings take into account publicly available information from a brand’s and its parent company’s publications, including websites, annual reporting, and sustainability reporting.
We only consider information that is specific, precise, and relevant. That’s important as it ensures Good On You’s ratings aren’t influenced by common types of greenwashing, which are typically ambiguous, vague, inaccurate, or immaterial.
Good On You’s brand ratings build on the work done by certification schemes and other independent rating projects. One of the most reliable sources of information about how a brand performs on an issue comes from certification schemes, this includes the likes of Fair Trade, Cradle to Cradle, and the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). However, only a small minority of brands offer certified products and so in addition, we look at the standards systems brands may choose to follow (for example, ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List) and the other actions that they claim to take. We take into account information from more than 50 certification schemes, standards systems, and independent ratings or assessment methods.
Find out more about the data sources informing Good On You ratings
Rating System
Brands receive an overall score out of 100 which is based on an average of their score in the key pillars (people, the planet, and animals) and weighted equally. This score is then translated into one of five rating labels according to a set of rules.
“Great” (5/5; for scores ranging 85 to 100 out of 100): Brands rated “Great” demonstrate leadership in all three pillars. They are typically very transparent and have both strong policies and strong assurance (for example, from relevant certifications or standards systems) to address the most significant issues across their supply chain.
“Good” (4/5; 65 to 84 out of 100): These brands adopt policies and practices to manage multiple issues across their supply chain and often demonstrate leadership in one or more areas.
“It's a Start” (3/5; 45 to 64 out of 100): These brands are transparent about their policies and practices to manage some issues and are making good progress on one or more of them.
“Not Good Enough” (2/5; 10 to 44 out of 100): These brands disclose some information in one or more areas and consider some issues but do not yet sufficiently address the impacts across their supply chain.
“We Avoid” (1/5; 0 to 9 out of 100): These brands disclose little to no relevant or concrete information about their sustainability practices. In some cases, the brand may make ambiguous claims that are unlikely to have any positive real-world impact.