Sustainability can be a tricky term
Shireen Sultana, head of product and innovation with KinderPass in Singapore, which creates sustainable, handmade developmental toys. The higher the percentage, the better — but often, companies don’t include a percentage.
Sultana suggested that consumers ignore buzzwords like “sustainable” and “cruelty-free” and instead look at the following before purchasing: whether the company or firm is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (if the product has WFTO stamped on it, it means that its buying, management and human labor processes have been approved by the WFTO) and where the product is made (purchasing a local item cuts down on transportation and supports the businesses in your area).
Also, sustainability may refer to different phases of the business or process ranging from the supply chain to the energy stewardship to the manufacturing process, said Casey Meehan, a climate action consultant, and the sustainability manager for Western Technical College in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Meehan suggested looking for products with the shortest list of materials — and of those, you should be able to pronounce them (even if they’re products you’re putting onto, not into your body).
“More ingredients with crazy chemical sounding names can signal that many more resources went into making the product and that it will, after use, release many more compounds into the surrounding environment,” Meehan said.
Sustainability is obviously a tricky consumer catchphrase, but this doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to navigate — nor do you have to spend inordinate amounts of time researching each product before making a purchase. But if you have a choice between a few products, you may want to reach for one that has one of the sustainable certification labels, that has a significant percentage of recycled materials or that sources the majority of its materials locally.
That’s a good sustainable start.