Unlocking Sustainability

How Green Hive Rates Ethical Brands

Sustainability is an incredibly complex field, often mired in intricate details and nuanced debates. At Green Hive, our aim is to simplify this complexity for you. We distill rigorous evaluations and multifaceted criteria into easy-to-understand ratings, empowering you to make the best-informed decisions for a greener, more ethical future.

Discover How We Rate
Shape
Green Hive's directory

How We Choose Sustainable Brands

With Green Hive, you can look for sustainable brands with complete confidence, knowing that every brand featured on our platform has met our rigorous criteria. Every brand featured on Green Hive undergoes rigorous scrutiny by our team of seasoned Sustainability Experts to ensure genuine sustainability. So, what's behind our brand selection process? Let's explore the key factors we take into account to select sustainable brands committed to promoting a greener, more ethical future:

Environmental Impact
Ethical Supply Chain
Chemical Safety
Animal Welfare

Environmental Impact

We thoroughly evaluate all the measures undertaken by the company to minimize its environmental impact. This includes, but it is not limited to, pollution-reducing production methods, efficient waste management, eco-conscious packaging solutions, responsible energy and water usage, GHG emissions reduction efforts, the adoption of renewable energy sources, the use of earth-friendly materials, and many other sustainable practices.

Ethical Supply Chain

We recognize that a truly sustainable brand values both its ecological impact and the well-being of its workforce. At Green Hive, we choose to support brands that showcase genuine concern for the people who bring their vision to life. Brands that prioritize fair compensation, safe working conditions, gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, living wage, nondiscriminatory employment practices, no child labour and forced labour.

Chemical Safety

We acknowledge that brands committed to chemical safety undertake a meticulous path, ensuring their products are free from harmful substances. At our end, we have decided to actively support and promote such brands, amplifying their commitment to offering non-toxic products. By choosing safe ingredients and embracing the principles of green chemistry, these brands not only protect human health but also safeguard the delicate balance of our ecosystems.

Animal Welfare

We prioritize brands championing animal welfare, standing against cruelty, and abstaining from practices that cause harm or exploit animals. These animal-friendly brands actively embrace cruelty-free testing methodologies, ethically source their materials, and incorporate plant-based alternatives whenever possible. In doing so, they demonstrate a profound respect for all forms of life, striving to create a more compassionate and sustainable future.

Our Review Process

How We Ensure that Brands are Truly Sustainable

We meticulously evaluate a brand's commitment to reducing its environmental impact, guaranteeing good working conditions, ensuring animal wellbeing, and using non-toxic ingredients. To accomplish this, we've implemented a comprehensive system to assess brands in the market and handpick those that are genuinely sustainable:

Third-party Certifications

Third-party certifications, accreditations, and standards play a vital role in our process to determine the genuine sustainability of a brand. External validations act as a safeguard against greenwashing, offering us the confidence that a brand's commitment to sustainability is not just a marketing ploy.

Yet, we acknowledge the diversity that exists within the realm of certification processes. Therefore, we meticulously evaluate third-party certifications to ensure that they align seamlessly with our mission of promoting genuinely ethical and sustainable brands. Consequently, we assess each certification based on several critical factors and assign it a score after a thorough analysis.

We take into account the ability of these certifications to significantly reduce negative environmental and social impacts while simultaneously enhancing positive outcomes throughout the brand's value chain. 

Trustworthiness is another key facet of our assessment. We examine the reputation and credibility of the certifying body itself, ensuring that it is impartial and operates with integrity. A certification's value is closely tied to the trust placed in the organization that bestows it.

Discover How We Analyse Certifications
Transparency in our evaluation process

Transparency

At Green Hive, we place a strong emphasis on a company's commitment to transparency. We believe that openness is the cornerstone of genuine sustainability. Brands that willingly share their practices, sourcing methods, and ethical principles earn our trust and, more importantly, yours. Transparency serves as a powerful tool for accountability, allowing us to scrutinize and validate a brand's sustainability claims. When a brand is open about its operations, it enables us to delve deeper into their commitment to creating a greener, more ethical world

Person working on a green project
Mountain and nature
Avaliable information

Public Disclosure Evaluation

In our assessment process, we go beyond surface-level claims to dig into the details that companies disclose about their supply chains. Our meticulous analysis covers a range of readily accessible information, including public reports, sustainability pages, and Codes of Conduct. By examining this data, we gain critical insights into the ecological, labor, and animal welfare impacts of a brand's operations. This comprehensive understanding equips us to make well-informed evaluations, ensuring that we only support brands genuinely committed to sustainability.

Corporate Responsibility

Size of the Company

At Green Hive, we carefully assess larger brands with stricter standards. Due to the scale of their activities, large corporations tend to have a more substantial negative impact on the environment, workers, and animals. Our aim is to ensure that the magnitude of their influence is matched by an equally significant dedication to environmental stewardship, ethical labor standards, and the well-being of animals.

Person working on a green project
Mountain and nature
Long-Term Progress

Ongoing Improvement

As part of our evaluation process, we place a significant emphasis on assessing whether a brand has established well-defined goals, concrete timelines, and robust strategies to consistently improve its sustainability performance over time. This reflects their proactive approach to ensuring long-term environmental and ethical progress.

The Sustainable Attributes that Make a Difference

While our primary focus is on stringent environmental certifications, we also take into account various sustainable attributes to authenticate a brand's dedication to sustainability. By integrating these elements into our evaluation process, we offer our readers a holistic view of a brand's ethical and environmental commitments, enabling you to make better-informed, responsible choices.

Zero Waste

Zero Waste

Zero waste is a sustainability principle aiming to eliminate waste through the redesign of resource life cycles for maximum reuse. Its ultimate goal is to prevent trash from reaching landfills, incinerators, or oceans.

Water Save

Water Save

"Water Save" refers to the practice of conserving water during manufacturing by minimizing unnecessary use and waste. It's an approach that prioritizes the efficient use of water resources to reduce environmental impact.

Upcycled

Upcycled

An upcycled product is created by transforming waste, surplus items, or undesired materials into a new, higher-quality item. This process often results in products with increased artistic or environmental value, enhancing sustainability.

Recycled

Recycled

A recycled product is one made from materials that have been reused. These components are typically sourced from recycling programs or recovered from waste generated during manufacturing, contributing to waste reduction and environmental sustainability.

Organic

Organic

An organic product is made from materials sourced from organic agriculture, which avoids synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. While most recognized in food, the organic approach also applies to apparel and personal care products.

Chemical Free

Chemical Free

"Chemical-free" is a marketing term indicating a product's safety, healthiness, or sustainability, implying it contains only natural ingredients. It typically refers to the absence of harmful synthetic chemicals, not the total absence of all chemicals.

Green Energy

Green Energy

"No Green Energy" refers to a business that relies on non-renewable energy sources, like coal, oil, or natural gas, for its manufacturing or production processes, rather than using sustainable, renewable alternatives.

No Plastic Pack

No Plastic Pack

"No Plastic Pack" refers to a company's commitment to not use petroleum-based plastics in its product packaging. Instead, they utilize eco-friendly alternatives, ensuring that their products are shipped in a more sustainable and environmentally conscious manner.

Offsetting

Offsetting

Offsetting is a strategy to balance greenhouse gas emissions by funding equivalent reductions, removals, or sequestrations elsewhere. It's a means for businesses or territories to mitigate their environmental impact.

Plastic Free

Plastic Free

A plastic-free product is one that contains no petroleum-derived plastics in both the product and its packaging. Essentially, it ensures that both the item and its sale packaging are devoid of any plastic material.

Natural

Natural

A natural product is a substance or compound created by a living organism or found in nature. Essentially, it covers anything produced by lifeforms, signifying it hasn't been artificially synthesized or significantly altered.

Vegan

Vegan

A vegan product is one that contains no animal-derived ingredients or substances. This includes not just meat or dairy, but also any products sourced from animals such as honey, beeswax, or certain types of colorants and additives.

Our Sustainability Mission

From Ratings to Real Impact

You've seen how we meticulously rate brands to ensure they meet our high standards for sustainability. But our commitment doesn't stop there. We're on a broader mission to make a lasting impact on the planet and its people.

Sustainability at Green Hive

Do you have any questions?

Feel free to contact us anytime to dive deeper into our evaluation process and discover how we're setting the standard for ethical consumer choices.

Get in touch
Search
Copyright © Green Hive | Terms and Conditions | Affiliations Disclaimer | We are a media company based in Barcelona, Spain.
