If you believe the opinion polls and market surveys, a significant majority of U.S. consumers are looking to align their consciences with their pocketbooks. Just this past week, a survey commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream found 91% of college students and 88% of their parents saying “they would be likely to purchase environmentally friendly products if they were available at stores they shopped at.” And: nearly all (93%) of the students agreed that American consumers “can conserve resources, protect workers, and build a better world by shopping carefully for environmental and fair trade products.” (Download the survey highlights here in PDF.)
And then there’s the annual survey of LOHAS (“lifestyles of health and sustainability”) consumers -- “a segment of the U.S. population for whom health, society, values-driven beliefs, and the environment are extremely important” -- the 2005 edition of which found that 89% of consumers care about social issues such as protecting workers' rights, and 95% care about protecting the environment.
Of course, translating that passion into purchases is far more complex. Determining which companies are truly “socially responsible” involves doing a relatively deep dive into company policies, practices, and performance. Suffice to say, few are going to bother, even if companies actually released such information in some user-friendly manner. Take my word: They don't.
And to date, there’s been no reliable one-stop source of information on socially responsible companies -- in particular, the type of larger, mainstream companies we find in our local supermarkets and big-box stores. No eco-labeling program has ever gotten traction in the U.S. (Although there are -- would you believe? -- no fewer than 137 U.S. eco-labels out there, and that doesn’t include non-environmental labels, such as “sweatshop-free.”) Among the cacophony of labels that do exist, some lack credible definitions and standards and a few are out-and-out greenwash.
That’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about Alonovo, an online information and shopping service that launches on Monday, August 22. In a nutshell: Alonovo has married socially responsible business ratings from a respected investment advisory firm with the products sold on Amazon.com, allowing you to view the full Amazon universe -- books, music, cameras, toys, jewelry, electronics, and all the rest -- through a socially responsible lens.
At least, that’s the promise.
“Essentially what we’ve done is taken the catalog of Amazon products and through our portal providing directly into the consumer experience the socially responsible ratings of manufacturers and merchants,” explains Alonovo founder George A. Polisner, who left a long career at Oracle to start the company. Polisner and his team have partnered with KLD Research & Analytics, a pioneering, well-respected socially responsible investing research firm, whose databases of company social performance are widely used by pension funds and other institutional investors.
The Alonovo site will be a portal into Amazon.com. When you view a product, you’ll see all the usual information -- price, product description, and reviews -- as well as the social responsibility rating of the company that makes it. The default rating will be a “balanced” score based on a company’s:
If you’re so inclined you can customize the ratings you see, dialing the weighting of certain categories up or down. For example, if environmental responsibility is a principal concern, you can give that greater emphasis than the other factors.
Alonovo will receive a monetary ka-ching for every purchase made through its site, though prices won’t be any different from those on Amazon. Users also can designate that a portion of Alonovo’s fee go to benefit any of several affiliated nonprofits, from Oxfam to Global Exchange to the Center for Civic Participation.
Alonovo faces some competition, both now and in the future. Already, there’s Idealswork, which offers a similar change-the-world-with-your-purchases mantra. Like Alonovo, Idealswork allows you to choose the social criteria that concern you -- from environmental and workplace concerns to animal rights and gay/lesbian issues. But Idealswork rates companies and brands, not products. You still need to map those ratings to the specific products you are considering, then go to some other Web site (or, perhaps, to an actual store) to make the purchases.
And then there’s the fledgling Sustainable Business Rating System, the LEED-like rating system that a team I’m involved with is developing. It will provide leading-edge businesses with a “sustainability” certification, but not for a while.
Alonovo, to its credit, makes things simple: Ratings, mapped to products, and the ability to make online purchases. All in one place.
Simpler is good when it comes to helping consumers vote with their wallets. Even most true-green environmentalists -- you know who you are -- have shown little zeal for making much of an effort to find greener products. Hey -- we’re all busy folks!
I do have some concerns about Alonovo. The site will, for the time being, lack any type of community feedback mechanism, a la Amazon’s customer reviews, that would enable individuals to comment on the ratings or the companies. Such feedback mechanisms seem mandatory in this day and age, especially in the area of corporate social responsibility, where some companies’ performance are overrated (BP, for example) while others’ are underrated (Nike, for example), and even the progressive community can’t agree on which are the truly “good” companies. For now, any user feedback will go only to Alonovo. Polisner says that subsequent versions of the site may include the ability to provide “structured feedback.”
But I’m more than willing to give Alonovo a chance. If it catches on, it could be one of the most powerful social change tools ever put into consumers’ hands. As Polisner puts it: “It’s one thing to stand outside of a business and say 'We want to you to do this or that.' But it creates a powerful statement when we can directly influence debits and credits and revenue streams based on a company’s embodiment of socially responsible principles.”
Amen to that.