Present and Future: 2024 and beyond

A second round of pilots started in September 2022 and finished in August 2023.

Additionally, Utrecht University and the Oiconomy Pricing Foundation are preparing for a start-up for the management of the Oiconomy Pricing Assessment Tool and related services.

Sustainability professionals and investors are invited to participate in this:

• Companies can contribute to pilots by assessing their products.
• Sustainability consultants can support companies and co-develop training materials.
• Universities can contribute with benchmarking studies and further developing methodological foundations and training materials
• Civil society organisations can promote application and support it in their business-oriented activities.
• Auditing and certification organisations can collaborate in preparing for accreditation of the standard.
• Government agencies can support the application in corporate sustainability networks and reward companies applying the Oiconomy Pricing system.
• Public and private procurement departments can include the Oiconomy Pricing system in their procurement requirements.

We are establishing various networks around the market introduction:

• the Oiconomy Pricing Lab (further development and knowledge generation and knowledge transfer).
• the Oiconomy First Movers Community (first group of companies piloting and enabling market entrance).
• the Oiconomy Ambassadors and Coaches Team (students, young professionals, consultants and supporters available for first-time users).

Past: 2014-2021

During  the years 2014 – 2019, the system was gradually developed and described in peer-reviewed articles.

Following that, in the years 2018 – 2020, a series of tests were executed in various industry sectors (food, apparel, leather). Based on the results, final improvements were made in the Oiconomy Pricing Standard and a comprehensive assessment application was constructed to guide and facilitate tool implementation.

In October 2021, a first pilot project including 3 companies and in cooperation with the RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) was initiated and completed in April 2022 (see results).