CommonShare's Standard Owner Benchmark is a tool that rates the sustainability of standard owners, or schemes. Standard owners are organizations that certify products, materials, and facilities as sustainable. The benchmark rates standard owners on five dimensions, namely governance, supply-side digitization, buy-side availability, relevance, and accessibility. The governance dimension looks at how well the standard owner is governed.
CommonShare looks at whether the standard owner is a non-profit organization, a decentralized autonomous organization, or a governmental organization within a democracy. The benchmark also considers whether there are third-party certifications and audits. The maximum score for this dimension is five, and the minimum is one. The supply-side digitization dimension assesses how easy it is to access normalized supply chain data on certified entities.
How the Benchmark Assesses Companies
The benchmark looks at whether there is a company search, a merchandise product search, and a geo-located facility search. The benchmark also assesses whether it is easy to find documentation and an API behind the information. The average score for this dimension is two, and the standard deviation is less than one.
The buy-side availability dimension looks at how easy it is for consumers to find sustainable products. CommonShare rates standard owners based on whether there is digitally verified badging on all products or ingredients at the point of sale. The benchmark also assesses whether all retail locations are geo-located and mapped for consumer purchases. The average score for this dimension is 1.4, with the standard deviation being less than three-quarters of a point.
The relevance dimension looks at the number of companies, products, and materials that have been certified within a particular industry. CommonShare looks at globally recognized standards and also considers consumer focus standards. The benchmark rates standard owners based on whether they are in the top quartile of certified products and materials and facilities in the industry.
Finally, the accessibility dimension assesses how easy it is to access the information. The benchmark looks at whether there is a publicly accessible API with a pricing model based on company size or membership in CommonShare. The average score for this dimension is one, which means that no standard owner has an API.
Overall, CommonShare's Standard Owner Benchmark is a game-changer in sustainability. The benchmark rates standard owners based on objective criteria, which helps consumers make informed decisions. While no standard owner has achieved a perfect score, the benchmark provides a roadmap for standard owners to improve their sustainability practices. It also provides an incentive for standard owners to improve their sustainability practices by allowing them to differentiate themselves from their competitors. CommonShare's Standard Owner Benchmark is an important step towards a more sustainable future.
For example, standards such as Better Cotton Initiative, GOTS, and Fair Trade Cotton are featured benchmarks on the CommonShare platform for their revered reputations and long-lasting commitment to tracing ethically-sourced cotton.
About CommonShare
CommonShare is a digital platform that aims to improve process efficiency, increase sustainable production and consumption, and drive new revenue for standard owners and certification bodies. The platform offers three key features: Tracking, Sourcing, and Engagement.
Tracking is a collaborative digital traceability system for materials, products, transactions, and companies. Sourcing empowers producers and suppliers with market access, while Engagement is a 360-degree digital assurance solution for standards. CommonShare's architecture supports traceability at all levels and can help standard owners comply with laws related to green claims, deforestation, and fair labor protection.
Scheme owners can integrate their own traceability software into CommonShare via API to conduct digital verification of any entity within the platform's architecture. CommonShare also offers digitally authenticated badges that come with a cookie-enabled piece of code, allowing the attachment of data on the back end. These badges can provide verification for each stage of a product's journey, making it easier for consumers to trust the claims made by producers and suppliers.
One of the main benefits of CommonShare is that it incentivizes standard owners and certification bodies to participate by creating a system of digitally verified claims. Retailers or distributors can buy these claims and pay a small fee to certification bodies that are integrated with the system. This incentivizes everyone to share data and creates a method where one certification body's data is not shared with another's.
CommonShare's platform also benefits producers and suppliers by providing a freemium model where they can have a free profile on the site, put up products and collections, and have order requests for their products. This supports standard owners' efforts to empower direct sourcing relationships as much as possible, driving more of the economics to the producer or manufacturer that is certified.
At the same time, CommonShare acknowledges the potential for becoming a dominant player in the market and plans to spin out the digital verification architecture to multi-stakeholder ownership over time. This move will ensure the platform remains interoperable and owned by all participants in the architecture, promoting decentralization and avoiding too much power in one player's hands.
To conclude, CommonShare offers a comprehensive digital platform that incentivizes standard owners and certification bodies to participate in driving sustainable production and consumption. Its architecture supports traceability at all levels and offers digitally verified badges and claims to provide consumers with greater trust in producers and suppliers. CommonShare's move towards decentralization ensures that all participants in the architecture can benefit from its offerings while promoting a level playing field in the market.