How Commons Rates Brands

Commons helps people tap into the power of their collective spending choices to lower global emissions. When we evaluate brands as part of our Best Brands series, we’re carefully evaluating the actions they’re taking to meaningfully measure and minimize the carbon emissions associated with their products.

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Based on the criteria below, we rank brands Good, Better, Best, or Avoid.

• Best: Best brands are measuring, reporting, and actively reducing their emissions. They don’t have to be perfect, but they must have evidence of progress and of tailored strategies to continually improve their footprint.
• Better: Brands must meet more than one of our climate-related criteria. For example, a brand may not be measuring its footprint, but they are making earnest efforts to address the common drivers of emissions for clothing companies.
• Good: Brands must meet at least one of our climate-related criteria.
• Avoid: Brands that meet none of our climate-related criteria.

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Transparent Supply Chains and Reporting

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Openness and transparency encourage trust and build accountability. We look through publicly available information, including sustainability reports, supply chain partner information, certifications, and partnerships. If this information isn’t available, we do not include these brands in our top picks.

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Carbon Footprint Tracking

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We look for brands that measure and share the footprint of their company and/or products. When a company understands what its biggest emissions drivers are, it can make plans to address these drivers while also demonstrating progress against these plans. This involves:

• Measuring their footprint, ideally in collaboration with a third-party partner.
• Reporting their footprint publicly, ideally sharing the breakdown of their carbon drivers.
• Taking ownership of their emissions by compensating their footprint with verified, high-quality offsets.

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Meaningful Carbon Reduction Efforts

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We look for actions that address the most important drivers of the company’s footprint. For clothing, this includes:

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Materials

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Certifications are important to understand the sustainability of a material and its processing. A couple of key ones we look for are:

• Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS): A processing standard for organic fibers that tracks the entire supply chain with environmental and social criteria.
• Global Recycled Standard (GRS): A voluntary product standard for tracking and verifying the content of recycled materials in a final product. This is especially prevalent for brands using recycled plastic bottles.

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Energy

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‍We look for brands using renewable energy and/or engaging with their supply chain partners to support decarbonization of their facilities and manufacturing processes.

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Slow or Circular Business Models

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Our fashion brand top picks fundamentally shift from fast fashion towards slow fashion and circularity. Evidence of slow or circular business models include:

• Offering take back and/or recycling programs for their products.
• Recycling or upcycling fabric scraps, rather than letting them go to waste.
• Focusing on timeless pieces and infrequent collection releases instead of pushing trends.
• Engaging in made-to-order or batch manufacturing.

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Community and Environmental Efforts

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Although we prioritize carbon-related criteria in our rankings, there are other important factors that determine how a brand treats people and the planet. Some of these include:

• Labor and ethics: Fair Trade certifications and a comprehensive Supplier Code of Conduct (audit for factors like a living wage and safe working conditions)
• Packaging and waste: plastic-free, FSC-certified packaging that is recyclable and recycled
• Other community and environmental efforts: This can include donation programs with nonprofit partners, projects that uplift communities near their supply chain partners, and more.

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