In a sea of green marketing claims, how do you choose a greener product?

The “paper or plastic” shopping bag debate is typical of the difficulties that face consumers who want to make environmentally friendly purchases: Should you choose paper because it is more natural than plastic and is biodegradable? Plastic because it doesn’t contribute to deforestation? Paper because it isn’t made from petroleum?

Greener One, an online community launched in January of this year, seeks to simplify shopping for environmentally preferable products and services by assigning a simple 1-to-10 Green Index score to popular consumer items.

“So many factors can be considered when evaluating a product’s environmental friendliness that many consumers find it nearly impossible to figure out which products are really green. Add green marketing claims to this mix and confusion can quickly turn to skepticism,” explained Zoli Piroska, founder of Greener One.

“Shoppers today have a hard time figuring out what is green. There are thousands of articles about what to look for, but these articles seldom provide specific product recommendations. People do not have the time to do detailed research on environmental friendliness in making the vast majority of their purchases,” Piroska continued.

Greener One takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating products, taking a product’s entire lifecycle into consideration in assigning a Green Index value. The environmental impact of using a product is just as important as the impact of its manufacture or disposal. In addition, Greener One differentiates itself from similar online services by focusing on multiple product categories – everything from personal care products to electronics and appliances to cars – and looking at top-selling products as opposed to only niche green products.

“Not all consumers want to buy the greenest products on the marketplace,” said Piroska, “but we found in our own product research that there is always a greener alternative for almost any given product. When enough people buy greener products, even if they are not the greenest products, we will see real change in both the marketplace and in the impact to the planet.”

The strength in numbers that Piroska alludes to is also the key to Greener One’s approach in building a scalable database of product information. Greener One gives consumers themselves the tools to evaluate products, and provides a platform for them to share environmental information with others. “Conscious consumers are vocal,” Piroska explained. “They take pride not only in uncovering product information, but also in telling others their findings. By taking a grassroots approach, we believe we will quickly have the largest environmental resource of this type in the world.”

Greener One is currently in beta, and can be accessed at http://greenerone.com .

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