Measuring Our Impact: How We Calculate Sustainability at Blueland

Blueland was founded from a desire to make the planet safer, which is why sustainability and transparency have always been at the core of everything we do. We also believe that businesses have an ongoing responsibility to their consumers, and that it’s more important than ever that we continue to keep our end of the bargain—meaning we clearly and simply communicate the ways we (with your help!) are making a difference. In this blog, we’ll cover the methods by which we calculate our sustainability efforts as well as some exciting numbers from 2024. Spoiler: every little bit is counted, and every little bit counts!

WHAT WE’RE MEASURING

When we’re talking about plastic diverted from landfills and CO2 saved, it’s important that we define exactly what we mean. At Blueland, we define plastics as a synthetic material that does not biodegrade and is made from polymers—long chains of molecules derived primarily from petrochemicals (chemical compounds derived from petroleum or natural gas). For the purposes of this report, we’ll be focusing on plastic containers as units as well as grams of PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), a plastic commonly used in both dishwasher and laundry detergent packs.

CO2, as you may know, is carbon dioxide—a greenhouse (read: heat-trapping) gas composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded with a single hydrogen atom. Natural, yes, but harmful to our environment in unnatural, modern industrial quantities. For the purposes of this report, we’ll be referring to CO2e (versus just CO2) as well as that specifically saved during the shipping process—and we’ll be measuring in terms of grams saved. CO2e refers to the climate impact of different greenhouse gases in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that would have the same warming effect. Each greenhouse gas has a Global Warming Potential (GWP), and CO2e allows us combine all emissions into one comparable number.

Before we go further, here are a few quick technical notes for those of you who love data!

• Number of plastic containers saved is based on the following baseline formats.

• We measured pounds (lbs) of plastic saved and grams of CO2e saved against the top 3 selling items in the category using SPINS MULO data as of 12/29/24 for all products except for Body Wash and Facial Cleanser.

• Pounds of plastic also include grams of PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), which is only applicable to Dishwasher and Laundry Detergent Tablets. 

• In calculating CO2e saved, we assumed land transportation of the top 3 selling items in the category with a comparable shipping radius. 

• Body Wash calculations are against top 3 selling items in the category of SPINS MULO data as of 01/26/25. 

• Facial Cleanser cleanser calculations assume an 8 fl oz bottle comparison. 

• All impact stats displayed on product pages and impact report assume 1 year median Blueland customer usage.

HOW WE CALCULATE

In the spirit of specifics, you should know we base our math on data from SPINS MULO—SPINS being the name of the data company and MULO standing for “multi-outlet,” which essentially just means you can purchase our products in multiple places. This allows us to calculate our impact against other leading products per retail channel—Costco, Amazon, grocery stores, etc.—not just those on our own site. 

With those numbers, we then make a few well-calculated assumptions about how Blueland affects your typical purchasing habits. For example, we assume that your purchase of one Tablet Trio is replacing 6.0 plastic containers, diverting 1.30 lbs of plastic from landfills and saving 464 grams of CO2e (from shipping) each year. We calculate these numbers for each individual Blueland product and apply the same philosophy based on purchasers across our site and other retailers. 

OUR IMPACT BY THE NUMBERS

All of this considered, every purchase truly makes an impact! In 2024, you helped us save…

• 6,417,804 plastic containers from landfills. 

• 130,836,514g of PVA—roughly the equivalent
of 311,515,509 plastic straws (based on a single plastic straw weighing 0.42g).

• 745,012,789g of CO2e from entering the atmosphere—the approximate equivalent of
taking 166 gas-powered cars off the road for a year!

If you’re ever curious, you can also track your individual impact at any time in your Blueland Account. It will continue to update as you continue to purchase and refill! 

As we mentioned before, crunching these numbers is quite tedious, but sustainability (and transparency about our sustainability efforts) is in our DNA, so you can trust that we’ll continue to not only calculate our impact but also share it with all of you. On that note, our 2024 Impact Report is live—and it contains even more insights into our year-round efforts toward a cleaner, greener future. You can dive into the full report here!