A Service Design Principle to create transparency about the impact of services.

These days when I go in my local Supermarket, Migros for those who know Switzerland, I can choose what I'm gonna eat not just based on how good this will be for my body (based on the nutrition facts and calories) but I can also choose what I'm gonna eat based on how badly it impacts the earth I'm living on.

Migros does that in a pretty clever way by giving you a five-star rating system called M-Check.

It's a series of labels that show you stuff like: how compatible this product is with a sustainable approach, how well animals are treated, how recyclable materials are or how respectful of nature a packaging is.

In a supermarket, this helps me understand why a certain product is more expensive than another or why I should switch to another product that better fits my goals about sustainability.

Many other organizations disclose more transparently the impact that their products or services have when you use or buy them. Allbirds, for example, lets you know how big the carbon footprint of a pair of shoes is. Or the websites like the lifecentered.design shows you the same information but for the carbon footprint of loading the page you're reading.

Action question

What piece of data would be relevant to present to users, employees or partners about the impact your service has on the planet?

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.