EVO: Rating Green Products, Growing the Green Marketplace
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11.29.07
With the goal of educating consumers about green products and services available to them, growing the green marketplace and providing shoppers with the widest selection of green gift items on the web, evo.com officially launched today. The site features more than 100,000 green products and services from 1,200 retailers, aggregated in one location, to make it easy for folks to find, learn about and make greener purchases.
“Consumers want safer, healthier products, but don’t have unlimited time to scour the web and become green experts,” explains Dan Siegel, EVO’s founder and CEO. “evo.com provides a direct connection for busy people to easily find the largest selection of high quality green products. For example our toy boutique offers 5,000 unique, earth friendly toys from more than 50 vendors. Every toy on evo.com has been prescreened and hand selected to be lead free and nontoxic, so parents can minimize the fears caused by all the recent toy recalls.”
The site rates each product, from one to five leaves, on their relative green attributes, which include a variety of green considerations: what it's made from, how it's produced, the distance it travels to reach the consumer, and what type of energy is used to power it. That means things like natural fibers, recycled content, local production, fair trade labor and solar power all get the nod.
Though they're just officially launching today, the site is host to a wide variety of products and content already, including apparel and body care, transportation and travel, homewares and appliances and even "green" money and investment. EVO has also partnered with Trees For The Future to plant a tree in the name of everyone who joins the evo.com community, and has pledged to plant at least 100,000 trees this holiday season.
So, isn't this just another excuse for consumers to buy more stuff, even if it's green? And what about greenwashing? Tune in tomorrow for TreeHugger's interview with Dan Siegel, the founder of EVO, to answer these questions and more. In the meantime, click on over to the site to cruise the selection from A (for Aptera) to Z (for Z. Bigatti) and to see what you can learn about saving energy, recycling and more. ::EVO
I love this website! I think its a wonderful idea to have millions of "green' products consolidated to a "one-stop" shop. And if it helps to educate more people about living a greener life, that kudos to evo.