In the development of ecospecifier, public funding was sought with the intention of ensuring that product information could be delivered at a high quality and into the public domain free of charge. Unfortunately these applications were unsuccessful.

This presented the ecospecifier development team with a dilemma, as providing quality information in this complex area is time and resource intensive.

The conventional industry model for providing information about building products is for suppliers to pay for many of the costs, which has led to a perception from many designers and specifiers that the information presented is not as independent as they would like. This is particularly significant in the area of environmental claims, where claim verification can be particularly difficult to establish.

As a result, two important decisions were made very early in ecospecifier's development:

1. To establish ecospecifier with the clear purpose of providing and investing in the provision of independent high-quality information about environmentally preferable products to the construction industry; and
2. To accept no advertising for product listings or placement. Rather, the ecospecifier business model would be based on a 'user-pays' and 'level of research provided' approach in conjunction with seeking support from genuinely independent financial sponsors.

The ecospecifier business model to November 2004:

ecospecifier was originally funded entirely from the following sources:

• Investment by the Centre for Design at RMIT and Natural Integrated Living, both in the development & establishment costs of the service and through the contribution of background knowledge and intellectual property
• Income from subscriptions
• Financial sponsorship from EcoRecycle Victoria; and 
• In-kind support from ecospecifier's many supporters and development partners.

The only exception to this has been small number of suppliers invited to speak at ecospecifier 'briefings' whom were also asked to make a contribution towards catering and other overhead costs of the events.

Since August 2005:

ecospecifier has offered 'Basic Listing Plus', 'Enhanced Content' and 'Enhanced Content plus Green Star' product assessments to manufacturers whose products meet threshold entry criteria. ecospecifier nonetheless continues to list products with a specified basic level of content richness at no cost. The details of these options can be seen under 'How Products are Considered'.

ecospecifier does not accept paid advertising from product manufacturers, and continues to make every effort to ensure real and perceived editorial independence.