To help you make more informed scoring decisions when you review a product or a business, we’ve created a guide to the good things and the not so good things when it comes to ingredients and sourcing. This refers to the sustainability and ethicality of the sourcing and supply chain of the product’s materials and ingredients.
Good things
- Locally sourced and sold.
- 100% grown/manufactured or made in the UK.
- Organically certified. Generally, this means a higher level of environmental and social requirements are met: better biodiversity, soil health, animal welfare, non-GMO or use of pesticides.
- No palm oil (any palm oil used should be certified as fully sustainable by the RSPO).
- Environmental and sustainable certifications e.g. B Corp (check the legitimacy of the certifications, some are better than others).
Not so good things
- Unreported or less than 100% certified sustainable palm oil.
- International supply chain.
- Not certified as having a slavery-free supply chain.
Useful resources
Anti Slavery: https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/slavery-in-global-supply-chains/
Organic Certifications: https://www.soilassociation.org/certification/food-drink/what-is-organic-certification/
RSPO: https://rspo.org/about#about-sustainable-palm-oil
wherefrom blog: https://news.wherefrom.org/what-are-the-certifications-that-ensure-sustainability-in-the-coffee-industry/