Sustainable Review

Web3 first caught my eye because I saw it as an opportunity to create the next cultural renaissance. An opportunity for creatives to get fairly compensated for their work without a middle man. An opportunity for artists to create without selling their integrity or ending up buried in suits, marketing, legal contracts, and cringe-shilling ads.

I saw web3 as an opportunity for journalists to write about their passions and freely express themselves without concerns about corporate interest or pleasing advertisers.

Well, I'm getting back to my web3 roots. I am actively sourcing funding for an indie research project.

But I need your help. I don't run ads on SR and the time spent researching and writing articles isn't free.

I want to expand my media brand Sustainable Review by building a complete database of sustainability reviews of major brands and organizations.

Each comprehensive sustainability review will be paired with a unique 1/1 NFT art piece that tells a deeper story about that brand’s relationship to our climate. Custom 1/1 NFTs will be randomly airdropped to backers of $120 or more.

Each NFT will be superimposed into live print, accompanied by a handwritten copy of the sustainability review.

Backers

What is Sustainable Review?

Sustainable Review is an independent media site formed in 2019 with a mission to make sustainability simple. We provide rational, optimistic, scientifically-accurate information about our climate. No clickbait, no ads, no agenda. Just an open and honest conversation about preserving people, planet, and profit.

About me

Sustainable Review garners around 10,000 readers/month. I was recently presented with more time to focus on writing professionally and thought this would be a good time to take SR a step further.

I already rank high on Google for search terms like “Patagonia sustainability, “lululemon sustainability,” and “Starbucks sustainability.” I want to build out more reviews and pressure organizations to improve their transparency, ethics, and reporting.

The sustainability problem

Sustainability needs more independent, decentralized voices.

Traditional media relies on corporate advertising to keep the lights on. This can hinder honest, accurate reporting, making it difficult for consumers to educate themselves on companies that are serious about sustainability commitments.

If you google “sustainability news,” you will find a long list of cookie-cutter corporate press releases boasting John Smith Consulting’s latest innovation. This offers very little to readers who want to learn more about their favorite brands.

Sustainable Review: then and now

Sustainable Review was originally intended to provide comprehensive “reviews” of sustainability reports from popular brands like Adidas, Lululemon, Beyond Meat, etc.

Unbeholden to any influence or inspiration beyond my desire to discern the truth about these supposedly “eco-friendly” companies, I write about sensitive sustainability topics openly and honestly. And some have been very popular.

Our Beyond Meat sustainability report quickly jumped to the #2 spot on google search rankings, just below Beyond Meat’s mission page. My review of Lululemon still sits on page 1 and has garnered 10s of thousands of views in the past year.

But nobly running a blog without advertisements has reached its capacity. It’s admittedly hard to sit down and write these days knowing I won’t get paid. As a professional freelancer, I’ve slowly drifted to writing more about non-sustainability-related web3 topics to pay the bills.

Now I want to evolve Sustainable Review into web3.

Our execution plan

  • Hire a small team of 2-4 writers to help me build a complete database of honest sustainable reviews of major brands and organizations
  • Each review will accompany custom cover art that tells a deeper story about that company or brand’s relationship to our climate.
  • Release each cover art piece as 1/1 NFT.
  • Airdrop at least one NFT per backer of $120 or more; the remaining (if any) will be raffled to smaller backers.
  • Partner with companies like Nori to remove the carbon footprint of each NFT drop.

Over time, we envision a full collection of NFT art for each brand review that 1) informs readers about that brand’s sustainability commitment, 2) incentivizes smart people to write honestly about corporate sustainability, and 3) rewards our backers with dope 1/1 pieces.

Each backer of $120 or more will receive at least one NFT that can be superimposed into live print, accompanied by a handwritten copy of the sustainability review.

The outcome: increase corporate transparency and ethics, pressure brands and organizations to step up their sustainability commitments, and show other brands how to do it right.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I think social impact projects are critical in spreading mass adoption in an otherwise noisy, overcommercialized crypto space. Let's make a real impact.

Why 10 ETH?

  • time spent on research and writing
  • paying visual artist (they will also be comp’d for nft sales)
  • social media ads to drive traffic, increase exposure to NFTs, and promote our newsletter
  • pay costs of running the site
  • mint fees to create 100 NFTs
  • social media manager
  • press release

What does a Sustainable Review look like?

Also linked above, you can check out an example of a previous Sustainable Review here.