You don’t have to be an eco-warrior to recognize that some corporations are really awful members of the world community, and might not be the types of organizations you want to drop your dollars on. Finnish startup Ekofy, has the mission of helping everyone choose from sustainable brands by creating an open platform where people can share thoughts and information about companies.
The result is a really nicely designed service built around crowdsourced information and opinions about companies, all related to their sustainability, which will help corporations put their finger on the pulse of what consumers want. As Henri Paltemaa, co-founder of Ekofy puts it, “If we all start to vote with our wallet it starts that. If millions of people want a fair-trade iPad, then Apple has more pressure to do so.”
The way the service works is a ranked directory split into two parts: a green list and a red list where you can find how people are ranking companies. After drilling down on one company, you see the positive and negative opinions split down the screen, allowing you to weigh everything out. The product is still somewhat in beta, but already companies like Globe Hope, Nokia, and Ikea are leading with the most positive buzz.
On the other side of the equation, Talvivaara Mining Company, which has been in the Finnish news after a list of environmental scandals, leads the negative side. At the moment their directory is built from the largest Finnish companies at the moment, with a few other global players (like Starbucks) thrown in, but clearly they have plans to take the product global.
To generate some revenue, they’re planning on offering companies a real-time research and analytics channel to help improve their sustainability, and to reach out to eco-conscious consumers. Additionally, they plan to provide widgets where companies can show their environmental reputation straight to their websites. It will be an uphill battle for Ekofy to build the brand necessary to become that platform, but they’ve got the design chops down that will make that process easier than most.
