The EVO Green Screen

Why create a Green Screen?

The EVO Green-Screen and rating system is truly at the heart of EVO as a company and what sets EVO apart from other buying guides. Most online comparison shopping engines allow you to compare two dimensions: price and brand. For the average consumer who would like to make wiser purchases, it is often difficult to know which products are truly good for people and the planet. Unfortunately, green-washing is prevalent in the market, and the terms “all-natural” or “earth-friendly” no longer mean anything. Consumers want to make sure that the toys they buy their children are lead-free, that their water bottles are free of biphenol-A, and that their new washing machine is the top of the line in terms of water and energy efficient. Consumers now not only can ask about the price or the quality, but they can ask, “How green is this?” We like to say EVO stands for the EVOlution of commerce.

What is the Green Screen?

In response to this increasing demand for product transparency and truly environmentally-friendly attributes, EVO spent several years developing an objective, science-based technology to screen millions of products for their environmentally-sustainable attributes and then rate them on a green scale represented by green-leaves: a score of one leaf means there is something about the product which makes it “green,” whereas a score of five leaves often means the product is currently one of the best choices for the people and the environment. For instance, a skin lotion that uses some certified organic ingredients will make it through EVO's Green Screen, but it would have a lower score than a skin lotion which not only is made with organic ingredients, but also was not tested on animals, is free of all petroleum based products, is paraben-free, and is made by a company which has incorporated green business practices into its overall operation.

How It Works

The Green Screen, in a nutshell, is a hand-compiled, expert-influenced, ever-expanding database of attributes which have been determined to have positive or negative impacts on human health, the health of other living things, or the planet and its climate as a whole. These attributes are given a relative weights or point-values based on a variety of credible data sources and advisors (discussed in more detail below).

Essentially, EVO's technology (both a data screener and a data crawler) goes out into the world of Internet commerce, retrieves product descriptions from companies and runs these descriptions through EVO's Green Screen. Environmental attributes are tagged, a numerical score is assigned to each attribute, and a final composite score is compiled. The composite score determines if a product gets published on EVO. As long as the net-composite score is one green leaf, the product makes it through the screen and is published on EVO's site. Out of 2 million products screened, currently around 1% or 20,000 make it through and are published.

EVO has identified hundreds of attributes, which are either positive (i.e. bamboo) or negative (i.e. acrylic) and thousands of “false-positives” (i.e. bamboo-like or bamboo-texture), which contribute to the ‘green washing' in the marketplace. EVO's goal is to make sure that we catch these “false positives” in our Green Screen in order to ensure that only products with truly significant green attributes are published on the EVO site. Variations of the same attribute (i.e. recycled material = recycled content) are normalized as a product moves through the Green Screen and are kept consistent across the site in order to prevent consumer confusion.

To better inform the consumer, EVO lists the positive and negative attributes of a product in each product description. The positive attributes like “organic wool” or “Energy-Star Certified” are listed in the color green, while the negative attributes like “imported” or “artificial flavoring” are listed in a red color. When a consumer “mouses-over” one of the positive or negative attributes of a product, a more descriptive definition of the attribute appears, allowing a consumer to learn more about what is environmentally-friendly about the product and what is not.

Credibility

EVO uses many important inputs in the creation of its unique environmental impact algorithm. We began by analyzing expert information and research from over 30 organizations including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Global Footprint Network, and Redefining Progress. Based on our analysis we assigned weights to hundreds of green product attributes. Our team of former eBay engineers designed and developed a product screening technology that could manage multiple sources of product data from disparate sources, screen it through our attribute list, assign a green score to products that passed and then map these products to their appropriate category to be published on evo.com. This process and our attribute list is continually refined by our team along with the input of expert advisors with a combined 100+ years of green product and technology expertise.

And then, there is invaluable feedback from you – our community of users. It was important for us to put EVO into a live laboratory and invite people to participate in polishing the product over time. Since the beta launch of the site, we have had 500,000+ unique visitors “kick the tires,” so to speak. Many of you are passionate and knowledgeable about a particular green subject matter and have provided helpful intelligence that we are incorporating into an ever-EVOlving process.

Why is the EVO Green Screen so unique?

Our Green Screen is an incredibly nuanced technology that has to handle thousands of unique scenarios and exceptions and balance data inputs from numerous sources. As one of our advisors noted – EVO may well have developed the first scalable green product screening and publishing engine. In that regard we are trail blazing without a map and as a result, we may occasionally get lost. Our promise to you is to strive for excellence, always admit our shortcomings and to incorporate the knowledge we learn along the way towards improving your experience as part of the EVO community.

What does the future hold?

EVO continually refines the Green Screen in order to keep it scientifically grounded, transparent, fair, and informative to consumers. In version 2.0 we will launch several exciting enhancements including an open source ratings and review platform to dynamically incorporate your feedback (while still maintaining credible and expert governance from our advisory board). We also plan to integrate more third-party expert rating systems (ie: Green Seal, B Corporation, National Geographic's Green Guide, etc) to enhance the amount of information users have to make genuine green purchasing decisions on evo.com.

Got any ideas?

We'd love to hear from you. Please provide your comments below and/or contact us. Your input will continue to enhance the community of people making ‘greener choices everyday'.