5.1 Have an Ethical and Sustainability Product Strategy

Create a publicly available statement in an easy-to-find location on your website that outlines a clear commitment to prioritize ethics and sustainability PPP standards that align with the organization’s mission, vision, and values and include statements specific to digital products, services, policies, and programs. This should be done while actively promoting such efforts (with evidence) using social channels.

Criteria

Statement Availability: The organization has published a publicly available Code of Ethics, Product Guidelines, Sustainability, or PPP Statement that includes language specific to digital products, services, policies, and programs.
Achievements And Compliance: Achievements, features, compliance, and anything beyond the scope of these guidelines are published within a sustainability section of your product or service.
Governance Over Time: Evidence is provided by the organization showing how it effectively governs implemented digital sustainability, climate policies, and related PPP practices over time.
Onboarding New Members: Training decks and workshops are provided by the organization for onboarding new team members on how it implements more sustainable product strategies.
Documentation: Your methodology has been documented through impact storytelling, documentation, and helping individuals make more informed decisions in order to raise awareness with your visitors.
Renewable Showcasing: The organization can show how it powers digital products and services with renewable energy.

Impact

High

Effort

High

Benefits

Environmental:
A clear sustainability statement should make it easier to align organizational policies and practices with measurable metrics to support goals. And, if included early in digital product strategy, can benefit from improved efficiency and reduced environmental impact.
Privacy:
By trying to reduce your emissions, and explaining to a wider audience how you aim to keep your sustainability promises, you can also highlight other key areas of visitor value as ethically important, such as privacy and security (which will gain visitor trust in your brand).
Transparency:
A clear, public-facing set of policies helps internal and external stakeholders better understand an organization’s commitments.
Social Equity:
Highlighting intersectional social issues in documentation, storytelling, and marketing materials raises awareness of both problems and potential solutions.
Accessibility:
Prioritizing inclusive design both in user-interfaces and storytelling raises awareness of accessibility barriers, improves experience for people with disabilities, and will reduce emissions by reducing barriers to access which may trigger wasted traffic.
Economic:
Transparent communication on how an organization shares the economic benefits of its digital work raises awareness of social inequalities. Similarly, helping visitors make more informed decisions can support a more financially sustainable product or service overall. A clear statement of intent will also make it easier for the company to measure and report on its impact efforts.
Operations:
Product teams are more engaged in the work they’re doing.

GRI

materials: High
energy: High
water: High
emissions: High

Example

Here are some great examples of a Code of Ethics, an Ethical Policy, a corporate digital responsibility document, a sustainability template, a sustainability policy, a code of conduct, and in Italian, a range of useful policy examples (PDF): A code of Conduct, Ethics, Environment, and Marketing.

Resources

View the Guideline