Have you ever stood in front of a vending machine craving a chocolate bar only to struggle choosing the one you want? I have, and let me tell you that choosing one chocolate bar among your favourites is certainly as difficult as any exam question! Do I want the biscuit taste of Twix, the pop of Nestle Crunch, the sharing potential of Kit Kat, or the decadence of Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme? Honestly, I find all of them to be equally delicious. Thankfully GoodGuide.com is here to introduce an X-factor in my decision making process – the sustainability of each brand!
Which one of these iconic brands is the most sustainable?
Let’s start with Twix. GoodGuide gives Twix’s parent company (Mars, Inc.) an environmental score of 7.0 and a societal score of 6.9. Initially I was impressed, until I saw a 3.0 for ‘Customer Health and Safety Controversies’. Uh oh.
Next up is Nestle Crunch. This was the only brand that GoodGuide provided with a health rating, which was an abysmal 1.7. Environmentally Nestle scored 7.1 and socially Nestle achieved 6.2.
Kit Kat and Cookies ‘n’ Creme are both owned by The Hershey Company, but strangely GoodGuide provided different ratings for each brand. Kit Kat, with an environmental score of 6.2 and and social score of 6.3, is rated much more sustainable than Cookies ‘n’ Creme, which only has 4.6 for both metrics. My best guess is that the folks at GoodGuide forgot to update the Cookies ‘n’ Cream page, because further research supports the Kit Kat ratings. (As an aside, this is a great example on why you should cross-reference your sources, especially for things like sustainability ratings!)
While Nestle Crunch was the only brand with a health rating, I assume that all four chocolate bars would have similarly terrible health scores after comparing their nutritional values. Therefore, based on GoodGuide’s information, I’m going to make sure I purchase Nestle Crunch the next time I’m pondering in front of a vending machine. Despite Twix’s higher overall scores, the 3.0 for Health Controversies is a bit scary, don’t you think?
Feel free to comment on your own usage of GoodGuide before making a purchase decision – I’d love to hear it!
Hi Vincent,
Thanks for sharing your experience with Good Guide and how you’ve applied it to real-world decisions! Although I do regret reading your blog post in the middle of the night a little since now I have the sudden urge to snack on some chocolate bars, particularly the Cookies ‘n’ Creme – they’re my favourite.
I find it a bit strange that only the Nestle Crunch has a health rating out of the four popular chocolate bars you listed. I wonder why that is. It also never occurred to me to use monitoring tools such as Good Guide for everyday, small, and even impulse purchases like the products you provided. I think that it’s great to see the certifications that each product/parent company has achieved, which I wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
Not to sound like a pessimist, but I believe personal emotions and feelings are rather hard to overcome thus making consumer preferences very hard to change with a simple sustainability rating index like Good Guide. I mean, unless you’re completely indifferent amongst all different types of chocolate bars, it would be challenging to tell yourself to choose the most sustainable one every and every time. I know it would be for me. For a single instance when I do feel like they’re all the same to me, I see how this tool can be handy. Kudos to you for picking Nestle Crunch!
That Health Controversies score definitely seems concerning, and I think I’ll look into it a bit more. Let me know if you find anything.
Thanks again for sharing!
The issue I have with Good Guide is that they don’t provide specific reasons for any of their ratings. You only see a number. While their methodology seems sound, I would like to know why Nestlé scored a 7.1 in their environmental rating. What does 7.1 even mean? My other issue is that their database is horribly inaccurate for some products. I don’t believe Good Guide should be officially posting ratings if they are not complete and they haven’t done their due diligence. The other thing is that there isn’t even a date attached to the ratings. If I knew when last Good Guide rated a product, I could make a more informed decision on whether to trust their ratings. I do like Good Guide and see the usefulness of the service, I just wish they had more time to comb through there database and update it.