Part of our mission is to simplify sustainability and make it more accessible to everyone. The ways we try to simplify the complex and multifaceted world of sustainability is by rating companies who make products that our families use everyday. That includes products that we put on our bodies and interact with in our homes on a daily basis. We focus on the safety of ingredients and materials used by companies in their products because they make their ways into our bodies. Once they are in our bodies, they can harm our health and the health of our children in unexpected or unknown ways.

Making informed decisions about the companies we choose to invite into our homes is a smart choice for parents. Some say that it’s our responsibility as parents, as well as citizens, to understand how our purchasing decisions can impact the planet and other families. The relentless rollback of the limited protections we did have as consumers and families means informed purchasing decisions has never been more relevant and necessary.

Your purchasing decisions are a small part of helping to create change. Over time, we make many of these decisions which means the benefits can add up. As more families join together to make better decisions, the impact of those decisions can accumulate. Impacts include immediate benefits for your family, like reducing exposures to harmful chemicals and ingredients in products, as well as near-term benefits for the people working at the companies you choose to support. Longer term benefits for families as well as our planet like less pollution, less deforestation, and cleaner air and water can come from those decisions as well.

Companies respond to a variety of signals. And their decisions about the safety and sustainability of their products is a direct result of consumer preferences and legal requirements. That’s why sending a variety of signals (e.g. purchasing choices, customer feedback, engaging in advocacy, supporting public policy) consistently over time can create real change.

As families who care about the impact of our choices in the marketplace we know how challenging it can be to try and align your values with your purchasing decisions. And despite decades working with companies on these issues sometimes it’s difficult for us to make choices that we feel confident in. A big part of the difficulty we face is that there is often a real lack of publicly available information from companies about their policies, practices, and performance on the issues that matter to us. Information about the things that we care about and value as ethically-minded families and responsible members of our communities.

Families shouldn’t have to spend hours researching companies and their products to shop their values. That’s why Hilde strives to make accurate and timely information available about ingredient safety, sustainability, and ethical business practices to as many families as possible so they can make informed decisions.

We take the time to find any information available from the companies themselves about their efforts on these issues. Sometimes we’ll spend hours locating, reviewing, and evaluating what information they provide in the form of web pages, reports, financial filings, and social media posts for a single company. We also locate and dig through information a variety of third-party sources like NGOs and government agencies. Learn more about the sources of information we use for our company ratings.

Unfortunately, dedicating time to researching companies (and often finding little to no useful information) isn’t the only barrier to being a more ethical consumer. When you can find information, it isn’t always useful when it comes to knowing if you can trust a company and their products.

You’re probably already aware of and concerned about greenwashing. For good reason. We see it on a regular basis. That’s one of the ways our company ratings can help you. We know what to look for when it comes to greenwashing and give you the confidence to find companies that are authentic and credible in their efforts. But nobody is perfect and even a trustworthy company can make mistakes. The sad fact of the matter is that many companies simply don’t know that they’re greenwashing, often because they don’t have anyone working for them with real sustainability expertise.

Trust comes first. Then you need to be able to evaluate the information to determine how well the company is performing when it comes to the issues that matter to the health of our families and our planet. This is where our decades of education and experience is at your disposal. We know what authentic and credible sustainability efforts at companies should look like. And while we’ll be the first to admit that our ratings are comprehensive and often challenging, we know full well that every single one of the criteria we use is fair and feasible for companies that are invested in ethical business. When a company receives our “Recommended” rating you know they’ve earned it.

To be successful we believe we must be transparent about our process and the fact that we’re not perfect. To ensure that we are credible and consistent in our approach to evaluating companies we have developed a robust methodology that determines how we assign ratings. We also know that to earn your trust we need to avoid bias, which is why we don’t use commission links on our site like so many other blogs, apps, and websites. We know there is always more to learn, room for improvement, a chance to grow. Thanks for choosing to join us on the journey.