Reflections on ranking companies on diversity, equity and inclusivity

In October 2023 at Ethical Consumer we published an article sharing a trial rating we had created that focused on diversity, equity and inclusivity. Designing this rating was an attempt to see whether there were meaningful differences in the ways companies approached DEI, which many readers have asked us to do and which we also thought was valuable to explore.

You can view the trial rating, and scores of companies we rated using it. Before publishing this feedback article we decided we did not want to implement the rating, for various reasons outlined in the original article, but we still wanted to share our journey and invite feedback. 

Feedback on the DEI rating

50 Ethical Consumer readers provided feedback on the feature and our trial's findings. 

Most readers appreciated the DEI rating exploration

The vast majority of respondents believed that exploring whether DEI could be meaningfully assessed was valuable in itself, regardless of whether or not a rating is eventually created. For example: 

• “I'm interested that you are exploring the issue and appreciate being made aware of the complexities.”
• “I would like to see this.”
• “If honed properly, it seems this would be a valuable exercise to add to your rating process.”
• “I believe this would be a useful area to include in your ethical scores as it considers an important area that many companies are looking to address effectively."
• “I think it's important to shine a light on how business responds to matters of diversity, fairness and inclusion so yes I think we should have a rating on Ethical Consumer.”
• “I appreciate your transparency and drive to reflect all aspects of ethical consumption… Thank you and keep up the good work.”

The majority of readers agreed with our conclusion

We concluded that, at present, we do not believe it was possible to meaningfully assess corporate approaches to DEI within our rankings methodology.

• “I agree that this is a tricky issue and not something that a rating can properly capture. I welcome that you explored it though.”
• “I agree with you that it is difficult to measure anything meaningful. Thanks for doing this work.”
• “I think DEI is complex, as you say. Some smaller organisations are good at it without matching any of your criteria precisely and some large organisations look good on paper but their ethos and actual practice can be poor.”
• “I think it is right to assess a company’s DEI ethics and make consumers aware. Conclusions based solely on the company's statements would potentially be biased though.”
• “I have the same misgivings as you about what to measure here. So, for example, I could be aware of intersectionality and what it means, and have a member of staff compile a statement around the issue, but it could be meaningless and the definition can change over time so you end up not really measuring anything. I prefer statistical measurements which can be consistent in approach, compared over time and across organisations."
• “Simply to thank you for looking at this issue - and I agree that it is an extremely complex issue and I’m not sure how you could do it effectively without it becoming a tick box exercise for at least some companies, or an “easy” way for some companies to sound good by acknowledging their weaknesses without actually doing much and/or ignoring their other large failings (witness Amazon’s relatively high position in this trial rating exercise!).”

One reader agreed with our conclusion that the current rating focused on self-reporting and transparency of policies, whereas “informal efforts” and results of policies which are often more valuable are too difficult for a global rating to assess.

Another reader also stated how companies often verbally commit to DEI requirements, but implementation is the area that is falling short, citing a “total lack of meaningful data about company compliance with Reasonable Adjustments under Equality Act etc.”

Another acknowledged that in some ways we do address DEI already within different ratings: “I believed you were taking account of DEI in some form already”.

Additional criteria suggestions

Many suggested alternative criteria they would like a DEI rating to include, such as:

• The observations and experience of staff and users/customers.
• Anonymous surveys from employees.
• Clothing sizes.
• Cost of products.
• Sale of “questionable and dangerous” products such as “feminine wash”.
• One reader highlighted how for staff demographic reporting “local population diversity must be considered… It is not meaningful if a lot of warehouse workers were immigrants with bad working conditions and that counts positively on DEI.”
• Being able to sign up online / use websites using non binary pronouns.
• Publication of staff pronouns, or the option of doing so.
• More emphasis on accessibility, for example if they have an app.
• Does the company have minimum disability online standards?
• Is it “inclusive by design”?

One reader suggested separating the rating into “talent-focused DEI” which covers employee representation, pay gap, flexible working etc; and “customer-focused DEI” such as how inclusive the products and services are to a diverse group of customers, including web accessibility and an inclusive shopping experience such as makeup skin tones, clothing sizes, skincare accessibility, etc.

Feedback on specific elements of the DEI trial rating

Concerns around the influence of NGOs

Two readers were opposed to the idea of a DEI rating that relied on NGOs criteria and data: 

• “Please don't do it [set up a DEI rating using NGO-informed criteria]. Organisations are setting themselves up as experts in DEI and charging companies for the privilege of being ranked… By all means ask companies about their gender pay gap etc but you can do this directly, instead of relying on activist led organisations with their own agenda.”
• “Counting on how companies perform/rank on existing benchmarking done by dedicated groups… is going to bias towards corporate companies who have the resource to participate in these initiatives.”

Two readers argued that a disability element of the rating should be built using guidance from Disabled People’s User Led Organisations. 

• “I, and I think that most Disabled people would agree with me, believe that DPULOs, Disabled People’s Organisation’s and self-advocacy organisations should be consulted in the future, instead of “Disability charities.”

The issue of ‘lip service’

Several readers commented on their experiences of company DEI policies being just “lip service”, and despite companies they worked for running for example DEI surveys, “nothing fundamentally changed”.

This was a central reason why we decided not to use this trial rating or implement it in our product guides. 

Companies address some DEI issues more than others

One reader stated:

“DEI ratings can be very biased towards specific categories of DEI… To be clear, it's GREAT if a company is LGBT inclusive, but that's sometimes easier for companies than being inclusive to women, or racial equality, or disability inclusion.”

Difficulties integrating DEI into our methodology

Some readers identified correctly the difficulties of integrating DEI in a meaningful way into our existing ratings methodology:

• “I would prefer to see DEI issues integrated throughout all your rating criteria. However, on looking at those criteria again, I can see how there will be many difficulties with such an integration”. The person stated for example that integrating DEI into our “Workers” and “Company Ethos” ratings would make sense, whereas it would not make sense to integrate it into the “Animals” rating.
• “It appears to me as though you're using your methodological shortcoming as an excuse not to implement any DEI rankings. The ranking system currently prioritises extremely expensive inaccessible companies.”

Some readers opposed the idea of a DEI rating

While many readers valued this exploration and provided feedback on the criteria, a handful of readers opposed the idea of exploring a DEI rating.

One reader said:

“Whilst the idea of covering DEI is laudable I worry that as a small organisation you will spread yourselves too thinly.”

A handful of readers however found DEI as a topic / ethical issue uninteresting or opposed to their values:

• “Don't bother doing it. I'm only interested in product comparisons.”
• One reader said that DEI is “workplace discrimination against white men” and “gave up” on trying to invest their savings ethically because “if you wanted action on climate change etc, then you had to go along with Wokery which I oppose.”
• Another reader appeared to misunderstand the idea of DEI, by viewing it as for example “putting a person in a job simply based on a credential such as skin colour or gender” and cited issues facing young white men. We believe this is a misguided view of DEI, because most DEI experts and our organisation would not permit hiring someone less qualified based on this criteria, or minimise or play down issues facing any people including white men.
• One reader shared discriminatory comments and criticised an organisation that represents a marginalised community. We anticipated some of these comments may emerge, as they have similarly emerged in the DEI section of our annual reader survey, and don’t believe there is significant value in publishing these or our organisation responding to them. 
• Another said, “My heart groaned when I saw the word ‘intersectionality’”.