BuyUSAFirst

The MIT project web site called SourceMap.org is to assess the carbon footprint of products. The site has extensive capabilities and could also be used to evaluate the social and economic impact of products. By quantifying the cost of raw materials, labor investment,profit, transportation costs and other contributors, the socioeconomic value of a product can be determined.

BuyUSAfirst.org is proposing the following objectives:

1)      Establish a way for companies to have their products certified or rated on their carbon footprint and economic impact. This certification or rating could be beneficial in promoting their products to businesses or consumers.

The rating or certification system would be officiated by an independent group or organization that would validate how the product is produced, where the components come from and the economic and carbon footprints associated with the components.

Essentially the companies would become self-regulating as they would try to improve their products SocioEconomic Rating with SourceMap.

2)      The Economic Rating is a large part of the sustainability aspect of a product. To be sustainable a product should be completely consumable, reusable, or recyclable. It should also be manufactured with the lowest possible carbon footprint and provide for maximum economic benefit for the purchaser.

The economic benefit of buying a product to the purchaser is extremely important. A product manufactured outside the community or region may have a lower retail price but has less economic and environmental benefit to the purchaser because:

a)      Much of the money used to produce the product is not circulated within the purchaser’s community or region. Thus, the return on the purchaser’s investment would be lost because the money recirculation benefits would be negated.

b)      The synergistic benefits to local production are lost when goods or services are purchased from outside the community or region. This goes beyond money recirculation. The synergism related to the business environment,  local education, events,  and the arts are lost if the money is not recirculated in the community or region.

c)       Local entrepreneurship is discouraged which can further impact the purchaser.

d)      The carbon footprint of the product degrades the global environment eventually impacting the purchaser.

As you might imagine it is difficult to collect the information required for this project. We are hoping that companies will volunteer to put this information into the database (it will be confidential). If they do not provide the information, the user community will begin to estimate the information and fill in the blanks for various products. This could result in a lower socioeconomic rating or higher environmental rating for the product.

By developing the above proposed plan the process of producing products can now come under a more sustainable and environmentally friendly model where engineers and product managers can first determine the carbon footprint and socioeconomic impact of their new products and then manufacture the products.

If you are interested in working on the economic portion of this project contact John B. Gibson at www.buyusafirst.org. If you are interested on working on the environmental aspects contact SourceMap.org