How Scoring Works
How a score is actually built, and what each label really means.
A rating, or an honest "not yet"
When we've assessed a brand, you get a plain-language rating. When we haven't, you get told so. We never show a number.
Behind every brand is a question: how much do we actually know? We're upfront about the answer instead of blurring it into one confident-looking figure. We used to publish a 0–100 score built from corporate disclosure paperwork; it read like a verdict it couldn't support, and it rewarded big companies for filing reports rather than for doing better. It's gone.
| What we have | What you see |
|---|---|
| A completed assessment We've read this brand's public record and reached a view. |
A "Likely" rating (for example, Likely Good) on the ladder below. |
| Nothing yet We haven't assessed this brand, or there isn't enough to go on. |
Rating pending. We'd rather say "we haven't finished looking" than guess. |
What this means for you: a rating means we've done the work and you can see what it rests on. "Rating pending" means we haven't — not that the brand is bad.
What the labels mean
Every brand lands on one simple ladder, from Below Average up to Excellent.
| Label | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| ExcellentEarned | A mission-driven brand that proves its standards through real, independent certifications. Rare. |
| GreatEarned | A brand whose sustainability commitments are backed by verified certifications, not just words. |
| Good | Strong performance across the public record we can check. |
| Average | Middle of the pack — some good practices, some gaps. |
| Below Average | Falls short of most peers on the areas we measure. |
| Rating pending | We haven't assessed this brand yet, or there isn't enough reliable information to place it fairly. |
What this means for you: the colors run from red (Below Average) up through green (Good and above), so you can read a brand at a glance. The two top rungs, Great and Excellent, are marked "Earned" for a reason — see the next section.
Why a paperwork-only brand tops out at "Good"
A giant company can publish mountains of paperwork. That shouldn't let it out-rank a genuine mission brand — so a data-only score stops at "Good."
Large corporations have whole teams devoted to disclosure. If we let the raw number climb without limit, the top of our ladder would fill up with the biggest companies simply because they produce the most reports — not because they're doing the most good.
So we draw a line. "Great" and "Excellent" can't be reached with paperwork alone. They're reserved for mission-driven brands that back up their commitments with real, independent certifications — the kind that require outside verification, not a press release.
What this means for you: when you see "Great" or "Excellent," it's a brand that earned it through verified action. A huge company can be "Good," but it can't buy its way past a smaller brand that's genuinely walking the walk.
How the assessment is built
One rating is really a summary of dozens of specific checks, grouped into three big areas.
We don't score on a vibe. Hundreds of individual data points are grouped into sub-categories, which combine into three pillars, which combine into the single overall assessment behind a brand's rating.
| Pillar | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Environmental | Climate & emissions, energy & renewables, waste & materials, and water, land & sourcing. |
| Labor Rights | Worker health & safety, supply-chain & human rights, diversity & inclusion, and wages, benefits & access. |
| Compliance | Corporate governance, ESG reporting, community & human rights, anti-fraud & ethics, and product safety & privacy. |
What this means for you: the single number isn't a guess — it's a roll-up of many concrete checks across environmental impact, how a company treats people, and how responsibly it's run. On a brand's page you can open any pillar to see the pieces underneath it.
How estimated scores are built
For brands without verified data, we answer a fixed set of focused questions using publicly available information — sustainability reports, certifications, news, and filings — and roll those answers up through the exact same three-pillar structure. The result is always shown as a "Likely" estimate, never as a verified number, so the two are never confused.
What moves a score up or down
Real-world actions adjust the score — certifications lift it, controversies pull it down.
The baseline comes from the data above, then two things nudge it to reflect what a company actually does:
- Certifications add points. Independent certifications are worth more than promises. A B Corp certification adds the most of any single certification, because it reflects a verified, company-wide standard. Others — like Fair Trade, 1% for the Planet, or a validated climate target — each add a more modest lift.
- Controversies subtract points. The penalty scales with how serious the issue is: a minor concern nudges the score down a little, while a severe or critical problem docks a lot. The most serious issues also ripple beyond their own category — because a major failure in one area usually signals something broader about how a company is run.
What this means for you: a score rewards verified action and reacts to real problems — it isn't just a company grading its own homework. Certifications you can trust move the needle most; serious controversies move it the other way.
Where these show up on a brand's page
On a brand's page you'll see a Certifications & Commitments section and a Reported Controversies section, each noting how it affected the score. Reported controversies are drawn from public sources and clearly flagged as allegations we haven't independently verified — their inclusion doesn't imply wrongdoing.
How we protect smaller brands
A small brand that doesn't publish a giant sustainability report isn't penalized for it. Missing paperwork isn't the same as bad behavior.
Big corporations have the staff to document everything; small and independent brands often don't, even when their actual practices are strong. If we scored purely on how much a company publishes, we'd punish exactly the kind of brands many shoppers want to support.
So when a brand has little public data, we nudge its score toward the middle of the pack rather than dragging it to the bottom. Importantly, this only ever helps — we never push a score down because a brand is quiet.
What this means for you: a genuine small brand isn't buried just because it lacks a corporate reporting department. A thin score reflects thin information, not a verdict that the brand is bad.
Confidence and data coverage
We tell you how sure we are, not just where a brand landed.
Alongside every rating we track two honesty signals: confidence (how sure we are of the read) and data coverage (how much public information there was to work with). When confidence is low, or coverage is simply too thin, we don't force a rating onto the brand — we leave it Rating pending.
What this means for you: the rating comes with a sense of how much to trust it. A confident rating rests on solid information; a pending brand is us admitting we haven't finished looking — not a hidden negative.
Want to know where all this information comes from and how we stay independent? See Methodology.