Powered by Purpose: Good On You

• Product: A marketplace for ethical fashion
  
• Purpose: To drive a sustainable future
  
• Link: https://goodonyou.eco/
  
• What can we learn? Check yourself
  The success of Good On You's platform is a firm indication that ethics, sustainability and purpose continue to climb higher up the priority list for today’s consumers. Utilise these insights and conduct an analysis of your own production line. Consider questions like, are you treating your employees and partners at every stage of your supply chain fairly? How can you continue to make things better to ensure your purpose and your values are reflected at every touchpoint?
  
  

What's Good On You's story?

Good On You is a platform and marketplace that provides consumers with a thorough analysis of thousands of brand’s, disclosing their values, ethics and supply chains. Their evaluation of each business is ranked against 3 primary categories: 1) People: looking at the brand’s impact on workers across the supply chain, including policies and practices on child labour, forced labour, worker safety, gender equality and pay. 2) Planet: considering things like the brand’s resource use, waste management and policies addressing energy use and carbon emissions, and 3) Animal: researching into how well a brand traces its animal products and welfare policies.
Following the research, the brand is then ranked under one of five labels: Great, Good, It’s a Start, Not Good Enough or We Avoid.

Though the desire to live a life that minimises harm to others is hardly new, unfortunately, consumers’ capacity to do so is often limited when companies aren’t transparent about how their products are made. In the fashion industry- one well accustomed to greenwashing and virtue signalling- knowledge really is power if consumers are to stand a chance of deciphering truth from fiction.
Though greenwashing might not appear dangerous, there’s evidence to suggest that misleading information on supply chains in fashion not only confuses consumers, but also significantly increases mistrust, which therefore further slows down environmental progress. And, in a sector run primarily by big businesses manufacturing high quantities at low prices, true transparency is, unsurprisingly, hard to come by.

What can we learn from Good On You?

Given the complexity of the fashion industry, Good On You do a great job of unpacking the reality behind these big brands, bearing the truth for all to see. They publish information on the companies sustaining child labour and profiting from the destruction of rainforests and the fur trade, but put most their emphasis on celebrating and giving voice to the organisations leading by example: the small businesses and change-makers working hard to build sustainable supply chains that treat both their people and resources, with respect.  In a world where consumers hold power in their pockets, platforms like Good On You make valuable knowledge accessible to all, enabling people to make informed and responsible choices. Choices that, ultimately, direct funds to the companies that have prioritised doing the right thing, over excessive financial return.