Caveats Regarding Our Data

How to Use GoodGuide Ratings

GoodGuide’s ratings are relative: they indicate how a product or company compares to other products or companies in the same product category or industry sector.   Use our ratings to help make purchasing decisions that match your preferences for healthy, green or socially responsible products.  Our ratings provide a  credible way to easily rank products and companies,  enabling you to pick the best in a category or identify alternative products you could switch to. 

GoodGuide’s ratings should not be used to make absolute statements - a "good" rating does not guarantee that a product is safe or that a company is environmentally sustainable or socially responsible in every respect.

Recognize the Uncertainties

Significant uncertainties exist regarding virtually all of the performance categories GoodGuide utilizes in its rating system.  In some cases there is ongoing scientific debate about how to assess impacts; in other cases the product- or company-level data required to assess an impact may not be reported fully, accurately, or in a timely way.  To illustrate these two important sources of uncertainty, consider the following examples:

• Methodological Limits  -  GoodGuide health scores for personal care and household chemical products are based on a screening-level evaluation of the potential health hazards posed by a product's ingredients. Scores are not based on a comprehensive risk assessment that integrates hazard data with exposure data to estimate the probability of harm.  The more in-depth assessment cannot be conducted because the models used to estimate health risks are subject to considerable scientific debate and the data required (particularly for characterizing exposures resulting from consumer product use) are almost always unavailable. Even our screening-level  hazard evaluations are uncertain, because the vast majority of chemicals used in commerce have not been tested adequately to characterize their safety.  
• Extensive Data Gaps - GoodGuide social scores include metrics that often suffer from data gaps.  While there is relatively little debate about how to characterize a company's record on labor rights, there are substantial data problems that limit our ability to accurately and fully rate a company on this metric.  While a company's labor record inside the U.S. is relatively easy to ascertain, more and more consumer product manufacturing is conducted overseas and the treatment of workers in factories outside the United States is very hard to track. Companies may contract their work out to a series of suppliers, and it may not be possible to determine who they are. Our data sources may use assumptions to overcome these gaps, leading to under-estimates or over-estimates of performance.

Value Judgments are Unavoidable

GoodGuide recognizes that even the most scientifically grounded assessment of environmental, health, or social performance requires value judgments about the relative importance of various issues.  For example, rational people can disagree over the relative weight to give product-level health ratings and company-level environmental and social ratings when constructing a summary rating for a product.  We have used our best scientific judgment in structuring our rating system, and acknowledge that GoodGuide editorial values have in particular shaped the relative weights we assign to different metrics.  Future versions of our product may offer support for users to customize the weights assigned to specific attributes.  

Note also that there are some attributes of products or companies that some people care deeply about, but which we decided to exclude from our rating system because of divergence of opinion about the importance of the attribute in our wider audience.  In such cases, we try to provide users with a filter that allows them to find products that meet their specific preferences, even if the attribute they are selecting on does not contribute to the ratings.   A good example of this type of value-laden attribute is whether a product is tested on animals.  Our rating system does not penalize products that have been tested on animals.  However, we understand how important this issue is to some consumers, so we provide a filter to users so that they can obtain lists of products that are not tested on animals, or that have been certified by third-parties as animal-friendly.  

Another type of value judgment occurs with ingredients that GoodGuide labels as "controversial." GoodGuide separates ingredients into two categories - ingredients of health concern and controversial ingredients, and only the first category contributes to a product's rating.  To be labeled an ingredient of health concern, the chemical at issue needs to have been identified as a potential health hazard by a source that GoodGuide judges authoritative (e.g., a regulatory agency like EPA or a scientific group like the National Toxicology Program). We do this to make sure our ratings are based on the best available scientific evidence.  In some cases, a chemical has not been identified as a hazard by authoritative sources, although it is the subject of current debate as to whether it might have adverse effects. GoodGuide labels such chemicals as "controversial" ingredients which a consumer might be interested in avoiding, but because the evidence of hazard is inconclusive, this does not contribute to the product score.  

GoodGuide Does Not Provide Medical or Financial Advice 

GoodGuide’s health estimates are useful for rating purposes only. They are not predictive of any actual individual’s risk of getting cancer or any other disease. If a product scores poorly on health, this does not mean that its use will cause a specific illness.  For a particular person suffering from a particular health effect, it is generally impossible to tell whether exposure to chemicals of concern in a product or via environmental pollution caused or contributed to the problem. GoodGuide’s information should not be considered as medical advice and it is not a substitute for care by a licensed health professional.

GoodGuide’s information also should not be considered as financial advice and should not be used to make investment or business decisions. If anyone wishes to make decisions related to socially responsible investing, a licensed investment adviser should be consulted.