The image above is a design schema of the EKKO-SCORE logic. It's not the final designs for our first public trials, but it is the general idea. Today we want to share with you where the score is headed, what we've learned so far, why it's taking so long and what is next!It turns out that making the complex issues look simple is darned complex and not particularly simple to execute. Since March, we have been working with a team of computer scientists, researchers, data scientists, academics, coders, and willing traders. What started as the idea of creating a simple score has ended up creating a whole new technology department and steered us into machine learning. While that all sounds very fancy and expensive, our mission is still simple: to democratise sustainability and make better eco decisions easy. We are now within reach of launching our first MVP prototype of the EKKO-SCORE for public testing. And all I can say is that if it's this hard to make products transparent, a score really is needed!
More and more consumers are demanding transparency and are suspicious of brands and products that don't offer it. The greenest consumers are becoming way more savvy and the even non greenies are becoming more interested as the world around them heats up.EKKO-SCORE GIVES CONSUMERS THE ABILITY TO MAKE BETTER ECO DECISIONS QUICKLY AT POINT OF PURCHASE. THE SCORE INFORMS THOSE LOOKING FOR ECO CREDENTIALS IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NUDGES THOSE WHO AREN’T TO CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES. IT ALLOWS EVERYONE - CONSUMERS AND VENDORS TO MAKE MORE BALANCED DECISIONS.Knowing more about the eco credentials of a product helps consumers and vendors to personally and easily make healthier choices, minimise exploitation of others and reduce their carbon footprint; and to understand the trade offs that their decisions might require. Sometimes we need a hand to identify the real choices we are making as even good products are not always a pure choice. These pics are great examples. A synthetic fur jacket means no animal died or was exploited in its making, but what is not so obvious, is that this kind of synthetic jacket sheds millions of microfibres when worn or washed. More obvious is the green smoothie is full of juiced goodness, but served with a plastic straw. In either of these cases, the choice may still be to proceed to purchase, but with ekko-score, the opportunity is there to know more about the choice.
Everything we do, every step we take, even the tiniest, leaves a footprint. From the bed we climb out of in the morning, the coffee we drink, the clothes we put on, the way we get to work and school, buy lunch, go shopping and party. The way we decide these things determines the size and cost of our footprint. EKKO-SCORE has 2 feet. One for Environment and one for Society. Each foot has 5 toes representing the ekko.world standards, each of which groups together the relevant measures. ENVIRONMENT TOES: ENERGY & BUILDING | ORGANIC AND CHEMICAL FREE | RE- | CONSERVATION & ENVIRONMENT | PACKAGING SOCIETY TOES: PLACE OF ORIGIN | ARTISAN | MULTI-SECTOR & FULL CYCLE | NO EXPLOITATION | SHARING & ENABLING
EKKO-SCORE simply uses available data to assess every product. The eco credentials of all existing consumer products have been verified or claimed or are discoverable in some manner. We simply gather all data to build a score, not just the good bits.EKKO-SCORE uses certifications (formal or claimed) to expose and verify product credentials. Using appropriate technology, these verifications, claims and associated information are accessed, assigned a weighting, aggregated and passed through an algorithm to give a ‘best knowledge’ eco score to any product.
The development of EKKO-SCORE gives small and micro eco businesses the opportunity to promote themselves through the quality of their eco credentials (and improve these credentials as necessary). The first stage of work completed with an industry / academic partnership with RMIT has given us both a working model and a road map, using artificial intelligence based algorithm to refine the EKKO-SCORE as products, processes and knowledge changes.
We are working first with Body Products because it is personal as well as being one of the biggest fields of eco innovation. Body products have typically been the domain of unlabelled chemical laden products sold for high prices driven by huge consumer marketing budgets. Better, simpler body products have an obvious impact on the lives of all consumers and the space is heavily populated with eco traders. Ingredients are generally more readily traceable and eco traders are typically keen to be transparent. Body Care products also share a lot in common with Food, which will be one of the next key target groups.
You could easily think that outing green-washing by non eco products would seem fair sport for an EKKO-SCORE. Ultimately it will be the case, but we are starting with eco products because they are typically less complex, more interested in being transparent and as such stand to benefit the most from the scoring of their products. It's also true that small businesses dominate initial innovation in the eco space, and are disrupting traditional business & changing competition rules. That is something that multi nationals are acutely aware of and why there is so much acquisition of smaller green businesses by "BigCo'.
The marketplace design of ekko.world will retain many of it's elements as we will remain a community for eco products. Some parts of it will change however as we shift our focus more toward ekko-score and supporting eco businesses.
This week, the Reviews were dropped from both Products and Businesses. We made the decision to take them down because ekko.world does not facilitate the sale of any products and most importantly, we are particularly interested in how products are made and how they decompose. The matter of how good a product is belongs in the product purchase chain.Once live, and starting with Body Care, all products on ekko.world will be scored across the entire range of potential assessments. The score will appear on the product's pages and thumbnails.
So many people have been involved in just getting us to this point and while we are very much at the start of a long road that will involve many more people, hand on heart, I want to thank everyone. Time and new pressures has a way of making those who helped today, the distant memories of tomorrow. We have an amazing support base, steadily growing every day, among the 5,000 traders and recyclers already on board. Many traders worked with us on the first manual Survey Monkey scoring trials that formed the base of what we gave RMIT Computer Science team to build this current algorithm. Aequora, Butt Naked, Caim and Able, EASNIE, Rustic Urban Soap Co, rh Beautanicals, Truth Cosmetics, Mayella Organics, Two-Winged Fruit, Ethique, Mokosh Skin Care, Eorth, Florence + Myrtle, Frankly Eco, James St Organics, Nail'd at Tiffanys, Meeno Organics, Surfpaste, Three Mamas, Wicked Scrub, Biome, Mandala Dream Co, Bouddi Body, Soue Skin, OmMade Skincare and many others. Thank you also to all our mentors, advisers and passing cheer leaders. We are constantly learning from traders and the daily requests from consumers, but there are also a pile of strategic decisions and impactful lessons from people who stay awhile, have been passing by or who are a more permanent fixture around here. Every one adds structural bricks and colour every day. While we are launching in Australia, EKKO-SCORE was given it's first push out into the world by someone in USA. It was Amanda Ellis from ASU Julie Wrigley Global Institute for Sustainability who got EKKO-SCORE on the table when she invited me to speak at the AREDAY Global Summit in Aspen in 2018 with some of the planet's greatest protectors. I couldn't go to the Summit empty handed and no one could return from that Summit without hands full of options.