Transparency

In our consumerist society, there is a distinct lack of information flow between the producers and the consumers. When we go to the store to buy things, there are usually several different choices with different prices and functions. These qualities are almost always printed on the label, next to the product, or somewhere else that is easy to find. As such, we are able to make relatively educated decisions about the products we are buying. But what if the environmental impacts of a product are important as well? I have not been able to find any products that have a reliable measure of environmental impacts that are readily available. Sure there are things like organic, and stuff like that, where there are federal regulations, and companies will often say that they are green, but because greenwashing is so prevalent, It is hard to know what to trust.
      I did find one site (we might have talked about it in this class a little) www.goodguide.com, which provides ratings of a range of products. They an overall rating, and then 3 ratings in different categories, health, environment, and social. If you so desire, they go very in-depth about the ratings and why they are that way.
     I believe that if these sort of ratings could be available right on the product, people would be able to take environmental impacts into account when buying things, and we can send a message to producers as to what types of products we want to buy, and so make a positive change in the world.