There is an emerging metric bubbling to the top that I find interesting. A non-profit team has developed a Goodguide metric, which measures the “corporate stewardship” of a company and its products.

You could say social value is how well a company practices good corporate stewardship, something the typical may not concern himself with in the aisles of Walmart, but early adopters, buzz-spreaders and health-involved purchasers often do. For GoodGuide, good corporate stewardship includes product ingredients free of carcinogens, aren’t brought to market via cruel animal testing and whose packaging is environmentally friendly.

It will be interesting to see if this really catches on and if consumers will actually lean on this in their purchase decision making process.