How Reliable Is The Good On You Sustainability App?

By Alex Assoune Apr 01, 2024

Good On You is a mobile app and website that offers thousands of brand ratings, articles, and expertise on ethical and sustainable fashion to learn more about fashion brands' impact on people, animals, and the planet.

The ethical brand rating system of Good On You gives out grades from 1 to 5 to apparel brands. This evaluation is somewhat limited when considering some of the largest social and environmental issues facing the fashion industry today.

The Good On You sustainability app or website still provides conscious consumers with buying advice and shopping suggestions to make better choices when purchasing fashion items.

It's an excellent way to discover new sustainable and ethical fashion brands. Before buying any new clothing, you might want to do a bit of research about your favorite fashion brands.

Here is everything you need to know about the Good On You rating system, how reliable the sustainability app or website is, and how it may or may not help you build a conscious wardrobe.

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Why use the Good on You sustainability app or website?

Ethical brand directories are amazing to identify what clothing label suits your fashion style and can answer your outfit needs. You can check online directly for more information about factories, materials, policies, and values.

Look for information about a brand to get a clear picture of what it is about. And a brand directory is one of the easiest ways to find new ethical and sustainable clothing pieces.

You can download the Good on You app or visit its website to find guidance while making ethical purchasing choices.

Established by the non-profit organization Ethical Consumers Australia, this tool helps you separate the sustainable fashion brands from those that aren't.

You can easily identify if a brand has been making progress in material sourcing, supply chain, waste management, and production methods to improve its environmental impact.

Good On You look at certifications, standard systems, and ratings to rank more than 2,200 fashion brands. It also considers brands' public statements that meet certain conditions for reliability and usefulness.
"Good On You is my benchmark for sustainable fashion. This means that when I’m given a platform to speak about my choice of outfit, I will have a meaningful story to tell. And it’s powerful. But I am just one person. In truth, we can all play a part in driving fashion to be more sustainable and ethical. By choosing to wear clothes from labels that embrace transparent, creative, and innovative production methods; and by re-wearing, recycling, swapping, and thrifting."

- Emma Watson, English actress, model, and sustainable fashion advocate
The Good On You app and website offer valuable resources accessible online that you can use to check if a fashion brand is ethical.

It can be difficult for consumers to tell what is true or not in fashion brands marketing strategies, considering how much greenwash is going on in the fashion industry.

Use Good On You as one of the best sustainability apps that help you pursue an eco-conscious lifestyle and make mindful decisions as an informed consumer that cares about people, animals, and the planet.

Good On You help you reduce your environmental footprint and make a positive impact on a global scale. It uses technology and business as a force for good to change consumer behaviors for the better.

Good On You wants to create a sustainable future in fashion. It believes that fashion brands should be responsible for and transparent about their impact.

The Good On You brand rating system helps you answer important questions about your clothes and favorite brands. It gives out ratings from 1 to 5 to apparel brands' impacts.

How accurate is the Good On You rating system?

Good On You is a great sustainability app to use, but it has many issues. Its rating system isn't as exhaustive as it should be, and many gaps exist in each brand evaluation.

The Good On You review of popular fashion brands is oftentimes very subjective. While they do a good job pointing out sustainability issues, the grades from 1 to 5 aren't the best representation of a brand's effort to become better.

The Good On You rating system can only evaluate easily accessible and publicly available information, which arguably represents one of its biggest flaws.

A grade from 1 to 5 is also quite limited. Many fashion brands receive the same grade, even though they aren't equally sustainable.

And, since the Good On You app covers both brands marketed as ethical and conventional brands with the same rating system, this leads consumers to believe that some fast fashion brands are as sustainable as eco-conscious brands and vice-versa.

Good On You is a pretty good resource overall, especially for someone new to sustainable fashion, but not nearly comprehensive enough. Many apparel brands appear on the app/rating website as eco-friendly when they aren't in reality.

The Good On You rating system isn't very accurate, but it's a good start to discover new brands you might want to try out. Worse, the editors often make assumptions.

They use a standard template with a similar approach for every brand. It's based on some automatically generated text that doesn't reflect precisely a brand's sustainability efforts.

Good On You doesn't do a great job at verifying information either. It seems to base its ratings mainly on each brand’s website with little care for truthfulness or accuracy.

Every consumer can also get in contact with brands and easily get more information directly from them. Good On You does some research but nothing extensive. The average consumer would be able to obtain the same level of information on his own.

Good on You remains a great starting point for your own research. See first what the app says, then look up the brand's website to examine if it adheres to your values.

Finally, get in contact with them if you find missing information or want to confirm the accuracy of their sustainability claims.

Good on You also lacks filters and the few filters already there aren't accurate enough. The app doesn't cater to vegans or people looking for extended sizes.

It's not possible to sort brands by location effectively for consumers looking to buy locally. Sustainable fashion is also mostly expensive and Good On You doesn't show companies in a given price range.

Hundreds of brands are missing and aren't evaluated yet. Many fashion labels aren't being researched regularly. Good On You users have many complains but system updates don't happen fast enough.

Using the app is often frustrating and the users feel left out. Many of them report constant crashes and a slow interface as well.

Do you use the Good On You app or website? Have you had (good) experiences with it? Then leave us your impressions below.

Was this article helpful to you? Please tell us what you liked or didn't like in the comments below.

About the Author: Alex Assoune

Alex Assoune (MS) is a global health and environmental advocate. He founded Panaprium to inspire others with conscious living, ethical, and sustainable fashion. Alex has worked in many countries to address social and environmental issues. He speaks three languages and holds two Master of Science degrees in Engineering from SIGMA and IFPEN schools.

What We're Up Against

Multinational corporations overproducing cheap products in the poorest countries.
Huge factories with sweatshop-like conditions underpaying workers.
Media conglomerates promoting unethical, unsustainable products.
Bad actors encouraging overconsumption through oblivious behavior.
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