Partner Selection Criteria
Our environmental research team assesses the environmental policies and practices of all potential partners. Only partners that meet or exceed our selection criteria are invited to join Ice.
In selecting retail partners and products we have been guided by Ice’s mission, which is “to mitigate climate change via mass consumer purchase power”. We have consequently focused on the mass potential for Ice when developing our selection criteria, whilst also ensuring that we are transparent and open enough to make it easy for you to quickly recognise the characteristics that make our partners products environmentally ‘best in class’.
|
Eco labelling
We work with a number of existing environmental standards. We are not in the business of creating and managing new standards; there are established organisations, which do this very effectively and Ice recognises these standards where they exist and are robust. For example, electrical appliances purchased from Ice partners may be assessed on the basis of their compliance with the Energy Saving Trust (EST); the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) is a well recognised standard for forestry based products, such as furniture, timber flooring and paper; and the Soil Association (SA) is the widely recognised standard for organic products. |
When no relevant environmental standards exist, the assessment of environmental suitability is undertaken on the basis of good faith using publicly available information combined with information supplied by the potential partner. It is important to note that we do not undertake detailed lifecycle analysis of the products and services of our partners. Nor do we conduct detailed independent due diligence into the product production and manufacturing processes.
Should it come to light that the partner has contravened its environmental pledges, we reserve the contractual right to suspend and/or dismiss the partner from Ice with immediate effect.
When reviewing products we believe it would be a mistake to focus on attaining perfection overnight. Everyone wants to encoruage progress, we also want your, our customer to feel inspired and rewarded, so we offer you an attractive choice of products and services; things that you really want to buy. We focus on selecting partners that are ‘best in class’. Our partners are not expected to be perfect but are expected to be environmentally superior to the norm for businesses in their sector. When we promote our partners, we aim to provide you with transparent understandable information about why our partners are environmentally friendly. The environmental benefits of the products are clearly explained through the environmental credentials button allowing you to choose to purchase products based on your own environmental priorities.
Some of the products promoted through Ice do not necessarily have smaller carbon footprints than similar products in their sector but they will instead have another environmental benefit such as being fully recyclable or fair-trade. When this is the case the reason that the product is included will be clearly stated in the business environmental credentials.
Finally it is important to state that we make every effort to maintain high environmental standards when selecting products; we regularly review our selection criteria. We are also in regular contact with all our partner businesses and annually review their policies and products to ensure they remain suitable for inclusion in Ice
If you have any questions about why certain products and businesses are included in the programme, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Equally, if you think any great environmentally friendly businesses are missing from Ice please do recommend these to us. If you would like to read the Full Ice Partner Selection Criteria document, you may download a copy here. The document is updated every 6 months and the existing version is version 1.2.
Your opinion matters to us and we welcome all your feedback. Please contact us at customerfeedback@myice.com