ASU scientists have begun pilot studies to develop a scientific measurement of commercial products’ sustainability as part of a larger effort ASU will lead with the University of Arkansas, an ASU official said.

The two universities head the Sustainability Consortium, which is an organization made up of universities, companies, non-governmental organizations and government agencies, which will work to create a product index that measures the sustainability of consumer products, said Joby Carlson, industry sector coordinator for ASU’s part of the consortium.

“We want to make sure that they’re given information that is based on facts,” Carlson said. “We believe that information … should be based on an agreed-upon set of metrics … that incorporates the entire life cycle of a product.”

The Sustainability Consortium officially started in July when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. joined and pledged $6 million over three years to the organization. About 20 companies are members of the consortium, including General Mills and SC Johnson.

Kevin Dooley, a W. P. Carey School of Business professor who is working with the Sustainability Consortium, said having a single index allows companies to redesign their products to be more sustainable.

“Simply the act of measuring is going to bring attention to the issues and there is naturally going to be improvement,” Dooley said. “It is a well-known phenomenon that if you measure something, people pay attention to it, tend to be concerned about it and do something about it.”

ASU is currently running pilot studies on liquid laundry detergent to develop an index for that product. It will also pick a specific electronic product for its second pilot study while the University of Arkansas runs pilot studies on food and agriculture products, Carlson said.

“We can sit in a room and think about all this stuff without a product, but we believe that the best questions are going to come up as we’re trying to take a product through the whole process of being evaluated,” Carlson said. “Those questions, those challenges and those learnings will be used to improve and expand the methodology to really push it forward.”

Carlson said the sustainable index will measure the entire life cycle of a product, from the moment its resources are extracted to the moment it is disposed of by consumers, known as a “cradle-to-grave” analysis.

“We really feel that the impact of a product is not just in when it hits the shelf,” Carlson said. “We’re very interested in taking a view of a product’s entire life cycle.”

Carlson said unless the “green” movement gets under control, consumers could become overwhelmed and tired of it.

“They are presented with a ton of different choices, and they keep hearing all these marketing claims about sustainability, about ‘green’ this and ‘green’ that,” Carlson said. “There’s going to be a point where we’re going to overwhelm the consumers … and that’s the last thing we want to do.”

Sustainability doctoral student Vee Subramanian, who is working on the pilot studies, said the Sustainability Consortium wants to provide simplicity in decision-making for consumers when it comes to choosing sustainable products.

“We want to make sure they don’t have to break their heads before they end up buying a sustainable product,” Subramanian said. “They’re taking the complexity, processing it, analyzing it and they’re putting it out there for consumers to make easier decisions.”

Subramanian said developing the sustainable index will push businesses and consumers toward sustainability.

“If consumers understand the sustainability of a product, they’re not going to buy products which are unsustainable,” Subramanian said. “So in that sense, there’s going to be innovation from manufacturers. They’re going to innovate new products that consumers want, so the less sustainable products would be fully phased out.”

Reach the reporter at snrodri2@asu.edu.