A curated social good platform that:
(1) highlights, vets and ranks social good brands that adopt transparent give back and sustainable practices based on a robust unique criteria assessment methodology; and
(2) shares sustainable and give back stories and every day tips to help each of us make positive impacts in doable and practical ways.
Our Social Good Optimization Data Analytics Tool was uniquely designed to assess a large amount of information (certifications, sustainable practices, social actions) and communicate it in a practical and helpful way for the everyday individual — to better use each of our purchase power.
Hey Social Good is a mission-to-action lifestyle company powered by HOVE Social Good Intelligence. Our mission is to enrich people’s lives with well researched information and social good alternatives that inspire people to become a force for good.
For some featured products or brands, we may earn a small compensation through affiliate links or other partnerships. However, this is not a requirement for being featured. In fact, we highlight the social impact of brands and products ONLY if they meet our social good impact criteria, regardless of monetary compensation.
In our review and assessment of hundreds of companies’ positive social impact efforts, we observed that many try to work on BOTH sustainability and give back. We believe it is important to recognize those businesses who are trying remarkably hard to achieve both social and environmental goals. For this reason, we established a Social Good Trophy Medal Ranking. We understand other businesses’ singular focus may be to drill down on one social cause, and that’s amazing. Thus, we thoughtfully considered how to recognize all types of victories and created three categories to highlight a business’ efforts: Give Back, Sustainability, and Social Good. Our goal is not to suggest that one is better than another, but instead, recognize the amazing work in each category.
A Social Good Company is a company that achieves both of the following:
- Gives effort, funds, or resources to addressing a pressing societal challenge; AND
- Adopts clear sustainable practices in the company’s operation and maintenance processes.
These companies do the hard work of working on both giving back to the community and adopting sustainability practices.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) form a list of 17 global goals, established and adopted by the UN member states in 2015, to act as a blueprint (and foundation) for countries to “promote prosperity while protecting the planet.” They address economic growth, education, health, social protection and job opportunities, as well as factors impacting climate change and the environment.
We feel strongly about working to make trackable progress in fighting climate change, reducing environmental pollution, increasing forest growth, increasing clean water access, improving education and respectable employment opportunities…well, we could go on. We believe tackling many of these issues can be achieved by increasing habitat and ecosystem health through planting trees. For every customer who joins our platform, we plant a tree.
We partnered with TreesfortheFuture.org to work globally on improving habitat restoration and community improvement. Because planting a tree does much more than just sticking some seeds into dirt. See our Give Back Page for more information. We also partner with local non-profit water organizations, San Diego Coastkeeper and Heal the Bay, to better impact our communities locally.
We define an organization or enterprise as working on sustainability if multiple of the following practices are in process or adopted:
- The sustainable footprint of a product and packaging by considering compostability, recyclability, reusability, etc..
- Source goods and products sustainably and responsibly by seeking renewable resources, providing fair labor practices, and more.
- Reduce and/or offset energy use, carbon emissions and water impacts during a company’s manufacturing, production and operations processes..
- Eliminate, reduce or offset energy or gas used for distribution and/or transportation practices.
- Sustainably manage waste generated by manufacturing, production and office operations.
Our sustainability ranking considers the above practices as a minimum. In addition, a company must transparently demonstrate its sustainable practices in order to meet our minimum sustainability criteria.
We define giveback as one of the following:
- Company gives a portion of sales. profits or revenue to a social or environmental cause;
- Company directly supports and provides resources to a community or social or environmental cause;
- Company contributes to a foundation supporting a social or environmental cause;
- 1% for the Planet membership;
- Company is B Corp Certified. We strongly support B Corp certification, which is a complex process whereby the company reviews the progress of its own Community, Environmental, Customers, Workers, and Governance practices, followed by a third-party audit.
A company must demonstrate at least one of the above practices to meet our minimum give back criteria.
Sometimes we come across companies who do not meet our minimum criteria to receive a clear medal ranking. However, we come across many companies with clear mission and commitment to being sustainable or improve environmental practices.
Often, these products or marketplaces have a mission to be a zero-waste or environmentally sustainable alternative to the conventional choice. Because of their commitment and efforts to date, we have highlighted (and are encouraging) these companies as Rising Stars to show their strong efforts to achieve sustainability.
