How ethically and environmentally responsible are dishwasher brands?
In our score table, every brand in this guide lost a whole mark under the Human Rights category. There are several reasons for this, which included: failing to create an adequate conflict minerals policy; operations in oppressive regimes; and supplying the military.
All brands also lost at least half a mark under Habitats & Resources which was also often due to inadequate conflict minerals ratings.
The majority of dishwasher brands scored worst ratings for Supply Chain Management. Only three scored a best rating. These were Miele, John Lewis and Bush. However, Bush (owned by Sainsbury's) came in last on the Ethiscore table and John Lewis also scored poorly.
Many brands lost half a mark for excessive director’s pay. Samsung’s highest paid director received an astonishing £31 million in 2019, while Siemens reported that all eight of its managing board received over £1 million in annual remuneration.
Environmentally responsible companies?
We also researched how well companies are taking responsibility for their environmental impacts.
15 brands received a worst rating for their Environmental Reporting, and 20 received a middle, while Samsung was the only brand to receive a best rating (though it received an overall Ethiscore of just 3.5).
Only one brand (IKEA) received a best rating under the Climate Change column. Miele, AEG, Electrolux, Hotpoint, Zanussi, Indesit, Whirlpool, and Samsung scored middle ratings, while all other brands (75%) lost a whole mark in this category.
Dishwasher brands
Big brand owners in the dishwasher industry are concentrated in five companies: Electrolux (AEG, Electrolux, Zanussi), Bosch (Bosch, Gaggenau, Neff, Siemens), Haier Group (Hoover, Baumatic, Candy, Fisher & Paykel), Koç (Beko, Blomberg, Grundig) and Whirlpool (Hotpoint, Indesit, Whirlpool).
Bosch is the leading UK dishwasher brand by a long stretch – over 5 million people in Britain had a Bosch dishwasher in 2019. This is more than twice that of its closest competitors Beko and Hotpoint (each with around 2.25 million users).
Since the last guide to dishwashers, we have removed the following brands: Britannia, Daewoo, KitchenAid, Leisure, LG, Maytag, New World, Servis and White Knight. These had either discontinued their dishwasher models, or the models no longer appeared readily available to buy in the UK. We have added the following brands: Amica, CDA, Kenwood, Logik and Montpellier.