The approach of Mother's Day reminds me that I've been wanting to introduce my readers to the Good Guide. It's a web site that provides detailed, reliable information on the health, environmental and social impacts of thousands of consumer goods.
On their home page today they offer a large number of suggestions for green mother's day gifts. If you haven't already bought your mom something -- and if you haven't, what's taking you so long? don't you know Mother's Day is tomorrow? Do I have to remind you of everything? And would it kill you to pick up a phone? All my friends' kids call their mothers every day . . . -- oh, wait . . . I'm not your mother. But as I was saying, if you haven't already gotten something for Mom, check out Good Guide.
I first learned about Good Guide from the book, Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, which I recommended here a couple of weeks ago. Their team of scientists, researchers and academics has assembled detailed information on over 70,000 products and rates each one, providing a simple way to find out how the things you buy everyday measure up in three categories - environmental, health and social impacts.
They also have a cool iPhone app that puts all this information in your pocket while you shop. Here, in their own words, is how Good Guide was started, and what their mission is.
One summer a few years ago, Dara O’Rourke was doing what he’d done dozens of times before: putting sunscreen on his five-year old daughter Minju before she went outside to play in the summer sun. The thought occurred to Dara, "I wonder what’s really in this stuff?" So, being a Professor at the University of California-Berkeley, Dara researched the sunscreen. What he found was surprising and disturbing: the sunscreen he’d been putting on Minju for years had a toxic ingredient.
At that moment, Dara realized how little we know about the products we bring into our homes every day. He knew that other parents should have the same access to product information that he and his fellow researchers had. He also wanted to solve the problem of increasingly confusing marketing claims regarding whether products were actually healthy, safe or green.
So he brought together both academic and technology experts to create a world-class team of scientists, consumer researchers, technologists and industry professionals. From Google, Amazon, eBay, PayPal, and Intuit, to MIT and the University of California, we’ve developed a "For Benefit" startup at the forefront of integrating science and technology, working to fill a huge information gap in the marketplace.
Our team is dedicated to combining the best science and technology available, with what’s most important to you. Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive, credible, and useful information in the world, on products and companies delivered whenever and wherever you need it. We’re making information available and easy to use so each of us can express our own values and concerns in the marketplace.
