Methodology: How do we get the Green Index?

Ever wonder whether your favorite shampoo is OK for the environment? How about your cell phone, your laptop, or your car? The Greener One green index provides an at-a-glance assessment of thousands of best-selling products, instantly showing you how friendly – or how harmful – your favorite products are for the planet.

But how do we get the green index? Primarily from people like you! If you are here, chances are you are a conscious consumer who cares what the products that you buy do to you, to your family, and to the earth. Like most people, you probably also tell your friends and family about products that you like, and warn them about products that you don’t. Greener One gives you platform to tell others about products that are good or bad for the planet, and gives you the tools and questions to find learn the real story about the products that we all use.

Resources

Greener One consulted a broad variety of resources to develop groups of environmental questions to ask for different categories of products. (You can find a complete list on our Resources page.) These questions were designed to give you a broad idea about a product’s environmental impact, going beyond a product’s green marketing hype to ensure that consumers can make the most educated choices possible. Our resources include information from state, local, and national governments and government agencies, consumer advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, and eco-labeling and certifications organizations.

Checking Products and Contributing to Greener One’s Database

Want to do something to help the planet? One of the best things you can do is to be conscious about your product choices and to educate others about products both friendly and harmful.

When you go to buy a new product, check with Greener One first to see what others have found out about that product. If the Greener One community has not yet provided info about that product, take some time to ask our questions about it. Email or call the manufacturer for more information. Check the product’s packaging. See if you can find out more online. And then, tell the Greener One community what you found out. The planet will thank you for doing your part to stop others from buying harmful products!

Contributing is easy! Simply enter the information that you find out, tell us the source of your information, and click Submit.

Calculating the Green Index

Once you click Submit, Greener One automatically calculates two things:

1. A rating for that attribute. For example, an Air Pollution Score of 9.5 for a car is quite good, resulting in a positive rating.
   
   
   
   
2. The overall Green Index for the product. To calculate the Green Index, we average the individual attribute scores to come up with an overall rating.
   
   

Want to get started?

Click here to read some tips for contributing product info and comments, or click Contribute on any product page to start now!