Our data comes from a mix of primary and secondary sources which we scour on your behalf.
Headline Stories
Over the past year or so, quite a few stories about companies’ misdemeanours have hit the front page.
We’ve heard about the problems with Primark’s supply chain, the mismanagement of the banks and the massive payouts of company directors.
Our researchers don’t just stop with the headline stories. We go deeper, looking at the source materials for many of these articles.
This enables us to input more detail about the company and add in any others that might be implicated in the original research.
Major Reports
Some of the major reports added in the last twelve months:
- Greener Electronics Guide, December 2008, Greenpeace
- makeITfair - Playing with Labour Rights, working conditions of portable music players and MP3 player manufacturers in China, March 2009
- Labour Behind the Label – Let’s Clean Up Fashion, Autumn 2008
- 2009 Corporate Equality Index: A Report Card on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Equality in Corporate America, published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation
- 'Subsidizing Sweatshops', SweatFree Communities in July 2008
- Nightmare on Sesame Street – Ernie toys made in Chinese Sweatshops, National Labor Committee, July 2008
Other Secondary Sources
As well as the major reports, we also get data from:
- environmental prosecution records
- membership lists of lobby groups, such as those lobbying against climate change policy.
These stories might not be big enough to hit the headlines, but are equally as important when trying to build up a full ethical profile of a company.
Primary Research
We also do some primary research ourselves. We contact all companies that we profile in the magazine and request their sustainability reports and policies on ethical issues.
Our researchers then rate these and this final information is added to Corporate Critic.
Some information also comes from the research that we do for Product Reports. For example, looking at energy efficiency of a product or adding information about ingredients it might contain.