At the risk of finding out I can't shop at the supermarket I can walk to...

November 7, 2011 4:30 PM

Is there a quick way to gauge how ethical the practices of a corporation are?

I've found a couple of watchdog groups that report specific issues in the news, but a lot of the relavent stuff wouldn't show up in class action lawsuits and stuff. Do they use predatory business tactics? How do they treat their workers? Do they suport sweat shop labor? Do they work toward sustainability? Do they do or not do other stuff that I haven't thought of?

Some of these I could dig and find easily enough, but others I can't, and I'm not gonna go dig up the sustainability report of every company I might buy something from. So, is there a site that gathers and tracks this sort of thing that I can refer to?

I see this old question, but Multinational Monitor isn't what I'm looking for, Crocodyl seems to be inoperative, and Good Guide appears to be specific to manufacturing practices.

posted by cmoj to Society & Culture (2 answers total)

You might talk to employees, customers, suppliers and competitors of the grocery store in question. As you say, these kind of activities are by nature private unless someone has exposed them by getting inside, first-hand information from the parties I mentioned.
posted by michaelh at 4:33 PM on November 7, 2011

There are so-called "ethical" investments, fund companies that monitor companies they invest in for their clients. This is called SRI, or Socially Responsible Investing.

You can easily look for SRI investments, especially mutual funds. They would issue reports about their holdings, and how they judge their holdings' socially responsible impact on the world, etc.
posted by smitt at 6:52 AM on November 8, 2011