I am currently enjoying a holiday on Canada’s beautiful (and stereotypically conscientious) West Coast and after witnessing a debate that I would likely never have heard back home in Toronto, I’ve been turned on to a new site (www.goodguide.com) that’s shed some interesting, and troubling, light on many of the products that I use at home while going about my day to day routine.

The debate took place in the Whole Body aisle at Whole Foods and it was centred around which toothpaste was best - Tom’s of Maine or Burt’s Bees.  The winner was ultimately declared to be Tom’s, and the trump card that was triumphantly played to seal the victory was “It’s definitely Tom’s - just check their enviro rating on GoodGuide.”  Being the inquisitive person that I am, and also feelng a little embarassed to have been seeking the $2 toothpaste among other $6 - $10 alternatives, I had to ask what this “GoodGuide” was.

As it turns out, it’s a site that in its own words “provides the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.”  The site was started by Berkeley professor to help address the concern that most consumers know very little about the products that are brought in to their homes everyday.  Using a team of scientific, technological and academic experts, over 60,000 household products have been rated on three separate metrics: health, environmental, and social performance.

The site is still in its beta phase, and whether or not you choose to heed/trust the expert ratings is a personal decision, but based on my browsing around today, I’ve already begun to appreciate the insight that GG has helped bring to some of the products I regularly use.  While so far, the site has not managed to gain a critical mass of user input and ratings, I think that once the word gets out there, this tool just might be the arbiter that helps tip the scales in a certain direction for prodcuts with which people have often teetered back and forth between preferences.

Some of the insights I have gained about my personal products include:

My soap could certainly do much better on both the health and environmental performance metrics, earning a paltry score of 4.0 and 5.5 out of 10 respectively;

I could probably stand to follow the lead of the toothpaste aisle victor and switch to Tom’s instead of the tried and true Crest;

And, while my laundry soap leaves my clothes smelling and feeling great, it may be downright unsafe if I am to trust the information provided on GoodGuide.

The moment of truth for the power of GoodGuide will come the next time I do a big shop back home and whether any of my buying habits change.

Take a few minutes and do a mini-audit of your own…How do your purchases measure up?