Spendwell.com, reporting & ranking the impact corporations and commerce have on people and our planet.
Rank companies by your own ethical priorities, so you can make better choices.
The complex nature of global markets makes it nearly impossible for even sophisticated consumers to make truly informed, ethical consumer decisions. Many of the corporations monopolizing global markets have known for a very long time the true cost of their business, but they have chosen to keep much of that information hidden or obscured. They’ve hidden the truth about their pollution, they’ve waged literal, deadly, and secretive wars on laborers, they’ve green- and good- washed superficial attempts to clean up their messes. And much, much more.
We need to be honest about what things really cost; what they cost all of us. And we need a way to do that. What if there was a way to take all the data about corporate performance, behavior and ultimately, impact, and distill it into a single comparative ranking that could be applied to any company, product or service?
This is Spendwell’s purpose: to make the value of a thing something greater, something much more honest than we’ve known. And to make it so incredibly easy to make the better choice.
www.spendwell.com
Right now, Spendwell [beta] is reporting the impact of the largest corporations in the US and on ethical priorities such as climate, lobbying and inequality. This reporting will expand as quickly as possible to include other ethical priorities, new companies and industries, adding to and updating each company or venture’s overall ranking as we grow. If you search for a company in the app or click its link through one of the single issue reports on the home page, you’ll find out exactly what Spendwell is currently reporting about that company and you’ll find its overall ranking — that singular point of comparative, distilled data.
Everyone prioritizes different things, so feel welcome to create a free account and set your own priorities. Once you’ve done that, the app will weight the overall ranking for each company by what you care most about. When you’re not logged in, the overall ranking you see is an average of all user priorities currently registered with Spendwell. This weighting is also what will drive Spendwell’s editorial focus, so there’s another reason to tell Spendwell what you care about — to help out and set the agenda — for Spendwell, and big business.
Markets are powerful. In many ways, you could say they’ve helped take the entire planet right to the edge of a cliff. And if they’re that powerful, surely we can use them to get us all back on the right, sustainable track?
There it is, a humble and nascent, but earnest attempt to help make it right. Please check it out and feel free to reach out with thoughts, encouragement and even criticism— as long as it’s constructive.
Spendwell, do some good.
Spendwell [beta] will be publishing new reports frequently. Every time a new industry-focused or geographically-focused report is published, it will also update the individual reports for each included company, adding new values to a company’s overall rank. Follow Spendwell on twitter to get reports as they are published.
Want to help? Become a member (its free) and let Spendwell know what you care most about by setting your priorities. Spendwell plans to have crowd sourcing opportunities in the future and we’ll let you know when that feature launches if you signup for updates (sent sparsely).
