pharos project : : framework : category description

The higher the percent of total content that is either reused, salvaged, refurbished, post consumer recycled or sustainably harvested biobased materials, the higher the score.

Recycled ingredients are evaluated using the weighting system used in the USGBC's LEED system - post-consumer content is weighted at 100% and post-industrial (pre-consumer) at 50%.

The biobased ingredients are evaluated with a similar weighting system based on two characteristics: a) inherent sustainability of the type of agricultural or forestry product and b) certifications of sustainability of the growing practices judged on their relative rigor. Click here to see a table of the renewable types and certifications and their weighting.

For each ingredient in the listed material contents, the Pharos system multiplies the renewable percentage of the ingredient in the product by the weighting and then multiplied by 10 to convert the percentage to a 10 point scale. Scroll over the green icon in the renewable column to see the renewable type and percentage in a material. If an ingredient is both recycled and biobased (such as recycled wood dust) the biobased weighting is applied, unless the recycled weighting is higher. The recycled and biobased points are added to get total renewable points score for the product.

Packaging is evaluated in the same way, then combined with the product score into a final score with the product score providing 90% of the score and the packaging 10%.

Click here to view detailed scoring protocol.