People Friendly Products
Next up: a new award coming soon…
Does a product harm people?
The question we’re dealing with in the People Friendly Products Award is: Does the product cause any harm to people during use?
It is the first of a group of three Future Friendly awards we’ll be introducing relating to products. This one covers the product’s harm to people, the other two cover harm to the environment, and harm to the climate.
This award covers both goods and services. It also covers goods ingested – that is, foods. It aims to ensure a product has a completely benign impact on people, both
- as a result of their use
- and (in the case of physical goods) at their end of their life.
It touches on the materials the products are made from – but doesn’t include impacts in the supply chain or in the production on the premises.
How can products be made more people-friendly?
The Awards looks at 4 areas:
Planning: Gathering facts about the product and assessing any potential harms.
Materials: The component materials need to have a benign impact on people. Efforts should be made to substitute or use a smaller amount of harmful materials or to minimise their harm.
Harm during use: Any potential harm of a product to peoples’ physical and mental wellbeing needs to be minimised – both during it’s use and in it’s “predictable mis-use”. Of course, many products have standard safety features – so with this award, a business gains points for any safety feature if it is not commonly available.
Influencing Behaviours: This involves reducing the harm caused by reinforcing addictive behaviours (such as alcohol or gambling services) or by failing to protect privacy (for instance, with social media platforms). It also includes influencing behaviours for good.
“There are many regulations about products that protect people from harm, and many businesses aim to do better than the minimum. So what we are asking businesses to do is to show us how they are rising above the average.”
John Ranford. CEO Future Friendly
I'm a business. How do I win this award?
Check out the people-friendly businesses with our guide and map. Or if you are a business, get listed today.