There are 7 key principles behind Four Leaf:

Accepted environmental criteria: Four Leaf is based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) environmental criteria. GRI is the most popular framework adopted globally throughout numerous corporations, associations and governments. Over 1500 entities have chosen to develop sustainability and/or Triple Bottom Line reports utilising the GRI guidelines.

Specific: The areas covered by Four Leaf directly correlate to the key resources depleted by industry and the impacts of their outputs. Whilst the scope covers a wide range including energy, water, raw materials, GHG, waste and emissions, the data is specific to provide a meaningful measure of performance.

Verifiable: to obtain the full rating per category, quantitative and qualitative data which results in a positive environmental score needs to be verified by an external source. This can be accomplished through an independent auditor, providing copies of material submitted to government authorities/initiatives or through paying a moderate fee and having data sent to Four Leaf for validation. Should a company choose not to provide independent verification, their scores will be scaled down by 30%, with a normal green (5) rating reduced to a yellow (3). Independent confirmation provides consumers with the assurance of reliability and negates the potential for greenwashing by companies.

Normalised quantitative data: Over the quadrants, Four Leaf measures and compares a company’s input of natural resources and impacts of outputs against its previous historical performance. It is not a general rating of environmental management systems, but an evaluation of how a company has altered its own footprint. Through using normalised data i.e. results per tonne of product, changes in product volume or pricing do not form part of the analysis. Worldwide, there is a general lack of data regarding resource inputs and impacts by industry sector.¹ Whilst it would be ideal to rate a company’s performance against others in the same sectors, meaningful and accurate benchmarking of individual companies or products is not currently possible.

Available: Key to Four Leaf is that majority of the information is readily available and already furnished in company annual reports and the reporting required for initiatives including the UK's Envirowise Key Performance Indicators and the Australian National Packaging Covenant. Other data is easily available from invoices, Bill of Materials, cost centres and the like by Financial Departments. Where data may not be held by the company e.g. rating of company cars, the mechanism for sourcing such information is detailed and is available via the internet. In many of the questions, companies are reporting percentage changes only, thus allowing calculation on a product, per kg or per tonne basis depending on the methodologies of their own organisation. This provides additional flexibility in information gathering.

Comparable: Whilst Four Leaf does not directly compare eco-friendliness of specific SKU's, it contains the mechanism of comparing changes in the footprint left by each product. The system rewards suppliers that have introduced environmentally friendly practices.  

Independent: Four Leaf is a company truly independent of retailers and manufacturers. Outside of the Four Leaf system, no work or consultancy is undertaken by the company. This maintains our legitimacy and independence, ensures no conflict of interest and provides a secure vehicle for the transference of data outside of the supplier/retailer relationship.