Overview
Planet citizenship evaluates a brand’s public-facing role in advocating for positive environmental change and its accountability regarding negative incidents. This area goes beyond internal operational changes to assess how a brand uses its influence to drive industry-wide sustainability, pioneer new business models, and contribute to research and development. Simultaneously, it serves as an accountability mechanism, penalising brands for misleading environmental claims or major ecological incidents in their supply chains.
Industry verticals: Fashion, Beauty, Services, Retailer
Applicable for: small and large brands
What is assessed?
The methodology distinguishes between positive and negative citizenship. Specific questions vary slightly by vertical, but common themes include:
Positive citizenship
Participation in initiatives that advocate for stronger public policy or educate consumers on behaviour changes to reduce consumption
Membership in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) like 1% for the Planet or industry-specific groups such as the Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics
Contributing significant funding to research environmentally preferable materials or circular production practices (eg textile-to-textile recycling or biotech ingredients)
Negative citizenship
Accusations or investigations by regulatory authorities (e.g., ACCC, CMA) or reputable media regarding inaccurate environmental claims, ie greenwashing
Major environmental disasters or breaches (eg large-scale chemical leaks or illegal deforestation) and the brand’s subsequent actions to remediate and compensate affected communities
Assessments in industry verticals
Fashion
In fashion, assessment emphasises the brand's role as a leading advocate. It encompasses actions to encourage the broader industry to be more environmentally conscious, such as releasing campaigns against overconsumption or sharing proprietary sustainable production methods with competitors.
Beauty
For beauty brands, citizenship focus areas include:
Evaluating the brand’s contribution to developing lab-grown (biotech) ingredients or upcycled formulations
Running packaging refill trials and publicly disclosing the results to inform industry-wide circularity solutions
Services and Retailer
The assessment for Services and Retailers focuses more heavily on participation in general advocacy initiatives, given their often diverse range of operational impacts.
Disclosure and data sources
Good On You primarily relies on a brand’s public website and formal sustainability, CSR, or ESG reports. In addition, for citizenship we reference:
NGOs or investigative journalists' reports
MSI membership list
Regulatory bodies
Relevance for different brands
The assessment of citizenship is contextual and depends on a brand’s size and the nature of its operations.
Large brands
Are held to a higher standard when it comes to environmental negative citizenship. Large brands are historically more likely to have environmental scandals or to have been reported for misleading claims.
Small brands
More likely to have business models centred on sustainability and, as such, are more likely to be rewarded for having purpose-built environmental missions.
Best practice and common pitfalls
Best practice principles
High-performing brands are leaders within their MSIs, sharing knowledge and campaigning for legislative changes
If an incident occurs, the best brands take immediate, publicly documented action to remediate the impact and compensate victims
Common pitfalls
Actions like recycling shipment boxes daily or using energy-efficient office lighting are considered tokenistic if framed as major environmental responsibility while ignoring supply chain impacts
Are members of MSIs but do not take an active role in their running