Is it ethical?
The Ethics criterion examines whether your product and the business practices behind it are honest, fair, and consistent with widely held values, including transparency about what the product does and how it is made.
A strong answer demonstrates that the product does not rely on deception, manipulation, or exploitation at any point in its value chain. It considers whether claims made about the product are accurate and evidenced, whether the supply chain is free from exploitative labour practices, and whether the business model is built on genuine value rather than addictive or manipulative design. A weak answer treats ethics as a compliance exercise or assumes that legal compliance is sufficient.
Ethical failures in product development are increasingly visible and consequential: misleading sustainability claims, exploitative data practices, and supply chain abuses carry reputational and regulatory risk that grows with public awareness. Evaluating ethics explicitly at the product concept stage, rather than waiting for a crisis, is the only reliable way to identify and address these risks before they cause harm.
