Sustainability Impact Score
Measuring how sustainable brands are
Zenbird Life uses a simple sustainability rating that anyone can use to understand how sustainable a brand is
Why do we need a sustainability impact score?
A brand can be sustainable, but how sustainable is it?
With the growing popularity of ethical products and services, more and more brands are making the shift towards sustainability. Some brands do a little to be less impactful on nature. Some brands outright greenwash that mislabel and mislead their customers. But there are those brands are role models of sustainability and circularity.
The rating helps users quickly identify the level of commitment a brand has, so they can engage the brand with confidence.
How does Zenbird Life see sustainability?
Zenbird.life uses three measurements to determine the commitment of a brand to sustainability:
1) SOC – The impact and benefit the brand provides the people in various communities.
2) ENV – The impact the brand’s product have on nature.
3) CIRCULARITY – Presence of the brand’s circularity in the system they operate in.
In simple terms, we give the maximum rating (3 stars) if the brand acts directly to solve societal of environmental problems, and an initial rating (1 star) if the brand made a shift within their business. We do not award ratings for brands who have made insufficient commitment to sustainability or circularity.
Based on the triple bottomline
The triple bottomline is a way to think about a business’ impact on society and the environment. Zenbird Life, and indeed, its parent company, Harch Inc’s, triple bottomline is the 3Ps: Planet, People and Prosperity.
The SOC and ENV measurements are inspired from this triple bottomline, that a business should not latch itself to profit. Instead, a business should benefit the well-being of society (People) and avoid harming the environment (Planet), while flourishing together with all involved with the business (Prosperity).
ENV: Planet/Environment rating. Rated from 1-3, where 1 is the brand is making significant adjustment to minimize its impact on the environment, and 3 is the brand making systemic changes by revamping itself.
SOC: People/Society rating. Rated from 1-3, where 1 is the brand ensuring its positive impact on society, and 3 is the brand making direct changes to social problems for the betterment of the community.
Based on the circular economy
We wanted to give a heavy weighting to how the business is designed, and how a business thinks of its place in the economy. How it approaches resources and waste during the design and manufacture of a product changes the dynamics of a green society and its impact on the climate crisis.
However, there are certain circular strategies that are better than others. With the CIRCULARITY measurement, we want to promote these higher ranks of circularity, so these brands can be role models for other brands to learn from, and can be eye openers to how far sustainability can go.
RECOVERY level: Brands that include effective recycling or promote recovery of materials as energy.
CONSUMPTION level: These brands introduced positive strategies like reusing, repairing and upcycling to challenge the linear economy of take-make-waste.
DESIGN level: These brands looked at status quo, and decided to change their foudnational business model to promote circularity.
Find out more about Circular Economy here (opens Zenbird.Media page).