Rhizome designed the Holistic Sustainability Assessment (HSA) labelling scheme for UNIDO to assess the social, ecological, economic and cultural sustainability achieved over a products life-cycle.
The icon displays the sustainability achieved: economically, ecologically, socially and culturally.
We have designed the Holistic Sustainability Assessment (HSA) labelling scheme for UNIDO to assess the social, ecological, economic and cultural sustainability achieved over a products life-cycle.
The labelling scheme comprised three basic steps:
1. Standard setting, or identifying criteria to be met.
2. Certification, or assessing to which level that standard is being met.
3. Labelling, or communicating the results of the assessment, including the assessment criteria with or on the product.
The Holistic Sustainability Checklist was designed to illustrate the holistic sustainability parameters relevant at each stage of a product’s generic production to consumption system (PCS)—material selection, production, distribution, use and end-of-life handling. In addition to this, the checklist indicates the social, cultural, ecological and economic tenets of sustainability strongly influenced by each parameter.
The checklist can be used as a guideline during the product development or innovation stage or as a standard during product redesign. Newly developed and existing products can be evaluated against the same checklist, making it an indicator of sustainability factors achieved.
Communicating the score in an easy-to-understand manner is central to the success of a labelling scheme. Considering that the right amount of information needs to be communicated simply, the Holistic Sustainability Label shows four sub-level gradings—one each for the ecological, social, cultural and economic aspects. These four single-level scores are then communicated through a single holistic sustainability symbol that encompasses the four sub-level scores.
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