Green Rating

At Greenstore, we make it easy for consumers to compare and choose brands, products and services that are better for both people and planet. We try our best to curate, review and rate green, eco, sustainable, organic, and ethical products and services in Singapore.

Greenstore is the first website in Singapore to develop and use an internal Green Rating system to help ourselves rate products and services based on their business, environmental and social performance, and to award them a Green Rating. The Green Rating is not an eco-certification or an accredited green label, it is just our internal tool to guide us in selecting green products and services, and show why we call them green.

We hope that the Green Rating also gives you an indication of why a product or service is considered green, and makes it easier for you to choose, buy and use better products, services and brands in Singapore that are good for the environment and the society.

How the Green Rating Works

Using our internal Green Rating system, we evaluate each product or service based on 30 qualitative criteria under 6 categories:

• Business Sustainability
• Energy and Climate Change
• Materials and Waste
• Water
• Chemicals and Health
• Social and Ethical

The information about each brand, product or service is obtained from publicly available material from the company’s website and/or from the company’s management or employees, where possible.

Each product or service is given a Green Rating label that shows its Green Rating from 1 star (lowest) to 5 stars (highest), and identifies which category it has been awarded points.

More points and more stars for a product or service simply give an indication that the company is more committed towards sustainability and has taken extra efforts to reduce the environmental and social impacts of the product or service. It does not mean that the product or service is the best or greenest or have zero impacts.

We try to make the Green Rating easy to understand and use, and acknowledge that as a result, it may not be the most comprehensive, representative or scientific rating system. The Green Rating is not an eco-certification or an accredited green label, it is just our internal tool to guide us in selecting green products and services, and show why we call them green. We welcome your feedback to improve the Green Rating via our contact form.

Green Rating Criteria (Version 1.0)

The Green Rating for a product or service is awarded based on answering Yes or No for all the 30 criteria in the 6 categories below and adding up the points. Yes = 1 point and No = 0 points.

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Each product or service is given a Green Rating label. The number of awarded stars and the categories it has been awarded points, are highlighted in green.

Business Sustainability

1. Does the company, product or service have a third party certified green business or green product label?

2. Does the company have a sustainability policy or publish a sustainability report?

3. Does the company have an Environmental Management System?

4. Has the company taken steps to implement green practices in the office or reduce the environmental impacts from its offices?

5. Has the company, product or service won any environmental or sustainability awards?

Energy and Climate Change

6. Is the product or service energy efficient or helps to conserve energy or reduce carbon emissions?

7. Does the product or service have an energy or carbon-related third party certification or label?

8. Does the product or service use renewable energy?

9. Does the company measure its energy consumption, carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions?

10. Has the company set an energy consumption, carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas reduction target?

11. Has the company taken steps towards reducing its energy consumption, carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions?

Materials and Waste

12. Does the product or service help to reduce, reuse or recycle waste?

13. Is the product made from reclaimed or recycled material?

14. Is the product biodegradable or acceptable for recycling after use?

15. Is the product grown locally or imported from a nearby country in Southeast Asia?

16. Is the product grown in a sustainable manner?

17. Is there conservation of the habitat or protection of the biodiversity where the product is grown?

18. Does the product or service have a sustainable material-related third party certification or label?

19. Has the company taken steps to reduce the material and packaging used for the product, or to reduce the waste generated in the production of the product or service?

Water

20. Is the product or service water efficient or help to conserve water?

21. Does the product or service have a water-related third party certification or label?

22. Has the company taken steps to reduce the water usage or wastewater generated in the production of the product or service?

Chemicals and Health

23. Does the product or service use natural ingredients or use no harmful chemicals?

24. Is the product or service certified organic and have a credible third party certification or label?

25. Has the company taken steps to reduce the chemicals used in the product or service?

Social and Ethical

26. Does the product or service have an ethics-related third party certification or label?

27. Does the company have a corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy?

28. Is the company against animal testing on its product or service?

29. Does the company have a no child labour or non-discrimination policy?

30. Are the company employees involved in community activities or volunteering their time to help the community or the environment?