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GoodGuide Press Room
Check out the latest news, happenings, and coverage of GoodGuide.
News Stories
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9/28/2009 Advertising Age —GoodGuide Puts Brands' Ethical Claims to the Test
The hype and puffery of 21st-century ethical marketing may finally have met their match: a small band of venture-funded academics who have set out to systematically rate thousands of consumer products and their manufacturers on how good they really are.
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8/30/2009 Christian Science Monitor —People making a difference: Dara O'Rourke
Dara O'Rourke wants to change the way we shop. He already is spurring a growing number of cautious consumers to think twice about what they buy — from soap to soup, detergent to deodorant. Mr. O'Rourke is cofounder of a website and iPhone app called GoodGuide, a sort of CliffsNotes to the confounding and complex world of ingredients typically — but not always — found listed on...
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8/24/2009 Ideal Bite —An Application A Day
Get greenness ratings for over 70,000 products - even offers nutritional info and ingredients lists
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7/27/2009 PC Magazine —GoodGuide named in the Top 100 Web Sites for 2009 list
If you're looking for a site to help you buy disposable Styrofoam beer cozies and as many products containing high-fructose corn syrup as possible, GoodGuide is not what you're looking for. What it is good for, though, is finding ratings and deals on a variety of safe, healthy, and green products.
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7/21/2009 Newsweek —How Our Purchases Affect The Environment
You don't need to wait for this sustainability index, which may take several years to develop, because there is a wonderful Web site called GoodGuide.com, which already does this. It's a downloadable app on an iPhone, and it rates products already on just these dimensions and instantly compares them to competitor products, summarizes their impacts in a single score on a 10-point scale, and lets...
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7/5/2009
Grist
—Grist's guide to green iPhone apps
Wondering what brand of toothpaste is the most eco-friendly? There's an app for that. Use this app to find out what's in 75,000 common household products. No iPhone? Check out goodguide.com.
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6/15/2009
Seacoastonline
—Site rates how green a product really is
Goodguide.com has just a mind-boggling amount of information crammed into the Web site. It analyses data on 70,000-and-counting food, household and personal care products for their health, environmental and social performances.
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6/14/2009 New York Times —On Web and iPhone, a Tool to Aid Careful Shopping
These days, every skin lotion and dish detergent on store shelves gloats about how green it is. How do shoppers know which are good for them and good for the earth?
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6/9/2009 Reuters —Where Should the Feds Draw the Line on Green Marketing Claims?
UC Berkeley professor Dara O'Rourke, founder of the product rating web site GoodGuide ... thinks there's a need for the federal government to take action beyond the FTC, and he called for Congress to "strengthen and expand disclosure rules that undergird product claims."
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5/21/2009 New York Times —Apply These Product Ratings Generously
We're not trying to tell you how to live your life or what social issue we think you should live by. We want you to make choices that better match your values or your concerns, so you can personalize the information using several filters.
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5/20/2009
GreenDaily
—GoodGuide Reads Ingredient Lists So You Don't Have To
Dara was inspired to make it easier for parents, and all of us, to figure out what's in the stuff we put on our bodies and sort out all the pretty marketing claims of "green" products. The result is GoodGuide, a one stop site for you find out how safe and eco-friendly a product really is.
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5/19/2009 CNET WebWare —Webware 100 Editors' Choice: GoodGuide (Best Newcomer)
We created the Editors' Choice awards for products like this: Small and relatively unknown products that demonstrate real leadership
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5/15/2009 Bill Moyers Journal —Bill Moyers Interviews Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman explains to Bill Moyers how better educated consumers can help build a sustainable economy.
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5/13/2009
KQED Radio
—Daniel Goleman on Forum with Michael Krasny
If you knew the hidden environmental, social and biological consequences of the products in your shopping bag, would you still buy them?
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5/3/2009 HealthNews —Health Quotient for What You Put Into Your Mouth
The diligent staff at Good Guides analyzes and evaluates products based on potentially hazardous ingredients (genetically modified ingredients come to mind), environmental impact (including shipping/transportation), and social, labor and political practices of the manufacturer.
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4/29/2009
ABC 7 News
—Look What We Found: TheFind and GoodGuide
Should you get the locally grown zucchini or the organically farmed summer quash? The bamboo towel from Asia or the organic cotton bath sheet from Texas? Organic face cream or natural? Disposable or reusable? Plastic or stainless? Is it green, sustainable, FSC and Fair Trade?
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4/26/2009 Mamaista —You CAN Handle the Truth
If you're like most moms, you have the occassional freak-out about the true meaning of "organic," "all natural" and "non-toxic" labels, but without a PhD, making sense of it all can be an exercise in frustration. Enter GoodGuide.com
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4/22/2009
Wired
—To Save the Earth, Start With Data
"[We want] to move people from being consumers of products to co-producers of supply chains," GoodGuide CEO and Berkeley professor, Dara O'Rourke told Wired.com at the website's launch. "This is where we move from individual action, solving an individual problem, to a collective action."
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4/22/2009
Treehugger
—Green Eyes On: Buying for Earth Day
To find out how your dinner stacks up, visit the Good Guide's website and search food products that are vegan, low in sugar, low in sodium, have a low environmental impact, are organic and so on. In other words, you can choose your foods not just because your belly says "yummm," but because the planet approves as well.
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4/22/2009
wowOwow
—Is What You're Buying Safe?
I went shopping ... again today, but this time with complete confidence that the toy I was buying was the safest anywhere: I consulted GoodGuide.com, a brand new shopping app that downloads into an iPhone and rates tens of thousands of products on their safety, as well as their social and environmental impacts.
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4/18/2009 Newsweek —Truth and Consequences
Now we can trace the real environmental impact of the stuff we buy. How to raise your own eco-IQ.
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4/14/2009 U.S. News and World Report —3 Easy Ways to Green Your Beauty Routine for Earth Day
How to green a beauty routine? Here are some suggestions. Products by Tom's of Maine and Burt's Bees get high rankings in the GoodGuide.
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4/7/2009 New York Times —iPhone App of the Week: GoodGuide
Sorting through labels that are at best confusing, misleading or at worst, inaccurate, makes it tough to know what to buy. Fortunately, GoodGuide has done a lot of the work for you.
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3/23/2009 O Magazine —Oprah Magazine: Green IQ
GoodGuide integrates data from hundreds of complex databases and summarizes the bottom line in the time it takes to exhale.
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3/12/2009 Time Magazine —10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now
Start-ups like the website Good Guide are sifting through rivers of data for ordinary consumers, providing easy-to-understand ratings you can use to instantly gauge the full environmental and health impact of that T shirt. Even better, they'll get the information to you when you need it
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2/28/2009
NewScientist
—Website to Dish the Dirt on Foods
Is it best to buy local produce grown in a greenhouse or an imported alternative? Shoppers will soon have a powerful tool to help answer such conundrums: www.goodguide.com.
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2/25/2009
San Francisco Chronicle
—Drug Store Woes
So how do you navigate the drug store? Consult groups that identify good and bad cosmetics. You can even text GoodGuide from the store and they'll respond with safe products.
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1/11/2009
New York Magazine
—You'll Have Your Very Own Virtue Scanner
For those worried about unwittingly buying sneakers made by a team of 7-year-old Malaysian seamstresses, Berkeley professor Dara O'Rourke has launched GoodGuide.com.
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1/10/2009 TechCrunch Crunchies 2008 —Congratulations to the Crunchies Winners
GoodGuide wins Startup Most Likely to Make the World a Better Place.
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12/15/2008
Crosscurrents from KALW
—The Good Guide to Toxic Toys
As you go shopping this holiday season you may be paying more attention than usual to the price tags. But this year it's "bargain hunter beware." It's just about impossible to tell what's in the Christmas presents we buy, but a San Francisco company, GoodGuide is trying to change that. KALW's Nathanael Johnson went shopping with Dara O'Rourke, the CEO of GoodGuide and has this story.
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12/12/2008 KGO Newstalk 810 —Cool New Website: GoodGuide.com
GoodGuide combines HealthyToys.org's chemical testing results with additional health data, such as PVC and phthalate-free products, plus country of origin, and social and environmental performance scores for popular toy companies. Shoppers can access all of this information by downloading GoodGuide's free iPhone application or through text messaging...
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12/12/2008 SF Chronicle: The Thin Green Line —Dreaming of a Green Christmas
You won't be doing the children or pregnant women on your list any favors if you give them gifts containing BPA or pthalates. Toys made from "jelly rubber" contain pthalates unless they say otherwise. GoodGuide has rankings of toys and other common gifts here
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12/11/2008
Healthy Child Healthy World
—GoodGuide's Holiday Guide to Safe Toys
A parent's job has always been difficult. But this holiday season it seems you need a team of elves with PhDs to find out where the toys you're buying came from and what chemicals might be lurking inside them.
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12/11/2008 Ebay Ink —Another resource to help with Consumer Safety: GoodGuide.com Beta
It's new and it's in Beta but the GoodGuide looks like another resource worth taking advantage of.
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12/10/2008
East Bay Express
—The Scientist in Your Pocket
"Industry spends billions of dollars in this space figuring how to get you to buy their product. You are highly marketed. All we are trying to do is cut a little hole through that wall of marketing money. Here, in your hand, you can have independent information, a personal scientist in your pocket to help you live your own values in the marketplace," said Founder and CEO Dara O'Rourke.
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11/19/2008
Righteous (re)Style
—Throw Out Your Conditioner Now!
The good part about the GoodGuide is that it actually provides a list of alternatives. And I am able to buy them immediately from Amazon.com with one click! Maybe I do, finally, need to bid adieu to my favorite The good part about the GoodGuide is that it actually provides a list of alternatives. And I am able to buy them immediately from Amazon.com with one click! Maybe I do, finally, need to ...
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11/16/2008
Holidash
—Guitless Green Pampering Products for Your Beau
A new website that may or may not have had me and other panic-prone shoppers in mind, can now tell socially conscious shoppers to put down that Bulgari aftershave (which was rated "terrible"!) and suggest the J.P. Durga aftershave (rated "excellent"!) instead. GoodGuide rates products based on how health friendly, environmentally friendly, and socially friendly they are. Those who employ undera...
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11/16/2008 Yahoo! Green —GoodGuide's Team of Scientists Does the Hard Work For You
Have all the headlines about toxic chemicals in toys made you confused about which products to buy your child? You're not alone. Even the experts are stumped when it comes to finding safe toys for their kids....Luckily there are some new tools for consumers who want to make informed choices. It's a good thing, too, because about one third of the 1,500 toys tested by the Ecology Center contained...
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11/7/2008
Treehugger
—GoodGuide Proves Green is Priority with Top Prize at Web 2.0 Summit
Six companies were highlighted at this week's Web 2.0 Summit, each of which earned a chance to show off their stuff in front of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and leaders in the tech industry. But it was the audience that prioritized and chose the greener GoodGuide as number one.
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11/7/2008 Plenty Magazine —Attention, Shoppers: 'Goodness' Database Goes Mobile
It's time to load up on specialized [mobile] applications. The cleanest and greenest of the mobile bunch is GoodGuide, a database that ranks products by their environmental merits — or, more likely, their inadequacies. It just became available as an iPhone application through Apple's App Store, which is likely to increase its reach and user base quite dramatically.
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10/24/2008 Advertising Age —Unilever for Obama; P&G For McCain
In case you needed any other proof of the rivalry, it turns out Procter & Gamble Co. (and its employees through their political action committee) overwhelmingly contribute to Republicans. Unilever doesn't have a PAC, but its employees overwhelmingly contribute to Democrats.
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10/11/2008
Radio New Zealand
—'This Way Up' interview with Dara O'Rourke
Shoppers get bombarded with information about the products sitting on the shelves. We get hit before we go shopping in the form of ads and then again once we're in store with packaging and special offers urging us to buy. But increasingly consumers want to know the full story behind the stuff they buy....what's in it...where it's made...how it's produced and is it environmentally friendly?
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9/22/2008
ABC News 7
—Goodguide Helps Knowledge of Products
The internet is filled with tons information for consumers who want to know what's in the products they buy — if you have hours to surf from site to site. But, what if there was one site that did all the research for you? Now, in a non-descript San Francisco office building — there is.
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9/20/2008
Sierra Club Radio
—Sierra Club Radio
Sierra Club Radio interviews Dara O'Rourke from GoodGuide.com, a new online resource that shows the health and environmental safety of thousands of household products.
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9/17/2008 BusinessWeek —How the Web Can Help You Fight Greenwashing
So where can one find some green peace of mind? The Web, of course. A growing number of Web sites have started to emerge to help consumers sort through the (green) BS.
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9/12/2008
CNET
—Best of shows: Top 10 from DemoFall, TechCrunch50
Chances for success: Very good. Looks addictive and useful. Great business model. (Site has buying links to products.) Why we like it: Has great product data presented in a compelling and simple interface. And the timing is right; people care about this information.
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9/12/2008
ABC News 7
—ABC News Tech Bytes
Ever want to know what type of environmental impact the products you buy make? GoodGuide is a new Web site that ranks products and the companies that make them on their health, environmental and social performance. The site currently offers detailed information on more than 60,000 household and personal care products -- from baby shampoos to bathroom cleaners. It will add similar information fo...
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9/12/2008
Lifehacker
—GoodGuide Evaluates Environmental Impact of Your Purchases
But how is the average consumer supposed to know that XYZ product is made in a sweatshop where workers have no protective gear or that ABC fragrance is made with a chemical banned in several countries? GoodGuide is a web-based database of products that offers ratings for products based on the company's history of social and environmental behavior, the impact of the creation of the particular it...
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9/11/2008 NPR Marketplace —New Site Rates Products for Safety etc
GoodGuide.com gives consumers a fast and easy way to find product ratings in numerous categories from reliable sources like government and academic databases. Rachel Dornhelm tries it out.
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9/11/2008
PC Magazine
—TechCrunch50: A Guide for Truly Good Products
Unveiled on the third and last day of TechCrunch50 and a clear judge favorite, the result was GoodGuide, a site with a mission very similar to that of OpenTrace.com. GoodGuide relies less on user input, getting its data from public scientific data and has in-house toxicologists and chemists on staff to interpret the not-for-laymen data. It displays a score from 1 to 10 for each product based on...
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9/10/2008 Wired.com Science —Startup Fights Greenwashing With Data Sent to Your Phone
Ever since companies across America, from Exxon to Wal-Mart, started "going green," scientists, environmentalists and skeptics have all been wondering: What does green mean, anyway? Today, a startup came out of stealth mode claiming that they'll put hard numbers to companies' health and environmental claims about their wares.
Spun out of Berkeley's Sustainability...
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9/10/2008
Washington Post
—GoodGuide Shines Light On The "Goodness" Of Consumer Products
Product transparency was a popular theme in the twelfth and last session of TechCrunch50, Research and Recommendations, with two companies in particular helping consumers make better purchasing decisions. The first, GoodGuide, was met with unanimous acclaim from the expert panel for its efforts to inform consumers of the social, environmental and health "goodness" of personal care products and ...
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9/10/2008
Earth2Tech
—GoodGuide Launches to Shine a Light on Products
From a purely consumer/user perspective, the team has developed a pretty sticky site. In addition to the easy-to-read ratings, it also has the latest product news (like recalls) and a discussion forum. We can tell you that as GoodGuide adds more and more products to its rankings database, we'll be spending more and more time using it.
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9/10/2008
The Industry Standard
—GoodGuide helps you find healthy, sustainable, ethical products
I haven't been at every TechCrunch50 session, but this is my favorite of the companies I've seen. The judges were unanimous in their support too. They pointed out that the idea may sound basic at first, but compiling and weighing this data actually requires a lot of work and expertise.
Multimedia
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7/22/2009
The Super Natural Mom interviews Dara O'Rourke
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6/9/2009
Tech Nation interviews Dara O'Rourke
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4/22/2009
How Knowing What's in Every Product You Use Can Make You a Better Consumer
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3/19/2009
GoodGuide Food Launch
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11/17/2008
CBS 5 Consumer Watch
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11/6/2008
GoodGuide Wins Best In Show at Web 2.0 Summit
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10/15/2008
CNET News Profiles GoodGuide.com
Press Releases
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3/16/2009
GoodGuide Launches Food Category — New Health and Environmental Findings Shed Light on What We Feed Our Kids
SAN FRANCISCO – March 16, 2009. GoodGuide™, the largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies, released ratings of processed ...
- 12/10/2008 With Toxic Toys Still on Shelves, Parents Dial Into GoodGuide
SAN FRANCISCO - GoodGuide, a San Francisco-based start-up with a social mission, released comprehensive health, social, and environmental toy product ratings today at http://www.goodguide.com and on mobile device...
- 11/4/2008 Web 2.0 Conference: GoodGuide App for iPhone and iPod touch Will Change the Way Consumers Shop
SAN FRANCISCO — November 6, 2008 - Millions of people looking to buy safe, healthy and green products now have the perfect tool to help them make better choices while they are in stores. The GoodGuide app for...
- 9/10/2008 TechCrunch 50: New Start-up Provides Free, Instant Access to World's Largest Source of Consumer Product Information
SAN FRANCISCO - Millions of people looking to buy safe, healthy and green products now have the perfect tool to help them navigate the marketplace. GoodGuide, which debuted at the influential TechCrunch50 Conferenc...
Media Contacts
For press and media questions, please contact:
- 12/10/2008 With Toxic Toys Still on Shelves, Parents Dial Into GoodGuide
GoodGuide™ strives to provide the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. GoodGuide's mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent "For-Benefit" company. We are committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.
