By Dara O'Rourke, June 03, 2009

Over the last decade of conducting research on these issues, I have ended up mainly talking to a few other academics (and talking to myself on occasion;) about the sometimes arcane details of global supply chains.

However, since launching GoodGuide, we have realized we have created a platform of sorts for conversations with a wide range of stakeholders on these issues - and in particular - on debates about transparency in the marketplace.

We are now hearing directly from thousands of our users. In fact, we have been a bit overwhelmed by the richness of the feedback and input from our users. So we are now building better ways to receive ideas and to respond to them. The great news on this is that people really want to know more about the products they are using. We are learning a lot about the issues the public cares most about, what products they want us to rate next, and where our information is not clear enough.

We have also been having some very interesting conversations with academics, non-profit organizations, and leaders from industry. This has led to some new collaborations and partnerships to get better information out to the public. For instance, we just partnered with ClimateCounts.org to flow their information on the climate policies and practices of companies that produce the goods we consume.

We have also been having some interesting conversations with reporters. I was just interviewed for TechNation today, which should be aired on NPR stations around the US in the coming week. I also recently got to sit down with Daniel Goleman to talk about the science and rating systems behind GoodGuide. It is rare these days to ever get to talk in detail beyond soundbites in the media. So it was a real pleasure to dig into some of details of GoodGuide and broader movements for transparency in the marketplace. You can download our interview, called Ecological Awareness, and check out other great interviews between Daniel and Greg Norris and Michael Lerner.

What I think all of these conversations are showing is that we are at the beginning of a potentially very rich conversation between consumers, manufacturers, retailers, and other stakeholders in these supply chains. We would love to expand and facilitate this dialogue as we build GoodGuide. So please let us know how you think we can do a better job of supporting these conversations on transparency.

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  GoodGuide™ provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. GoodGuide's mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent "For-Benefit" company. We are committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.

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