Recently scored: Mace, Gatwick Airport, Heathrow Airport, The Boeing Company
Methodology

How scores work

Every company on SINK gets a score from 0 to 100. Higher is better.

The score tells you how much harm a company does to the planet, and how well it’s working to do less. We use the same rules for every company. Every score shows its evidence, so you can check it yourself.

The three ingredients

What goes into a score

Three things go into every score.

  1. 1. An industry starting point

    Some industries do more harm than others, whatever a company does. A software firm starts at 70. A coal miner starts at 10. This counts for 30% of the score.

  2. 2. Ten questions

    Then we look at what the company actually does. We ask ten questions, each scored 0 to 10. This counts for 70%.

  3. 3. A size deduction

    What matters to the planet is total tonnes, so big polluters lose more, up to 40% off. Under 100,000 tonnes a year, nothing comes off.

The ten questions

What we ask every company

  1. 1.Own emissions. Does it measure and publish the emissions from its own sites and vehicles (Scope 1 and 2)?
  2. 2.Supply chain emissions. Does it know the emissions in its supply chain and from its products in use (Scope 3)?
  3. 3.Direction of travel. Are its emissions actually going down, year on year?
  4. 4.Energy. How much of its energy comes from renewable sources?
  5. 5.Nature. What does it do to forests, land and wildlife?
  6. 6.Resources and waste. Does it reuse and recycle, or make, use and throw away?
  7. 7.Water. How much water does it use, and does it pollute any?
  8. 8.Targets. Does it have targets backed by science, and does it cut before it offsets?
  9. 9.Openness. Does it publish what it does, and who at the top answers for it?
  10. 10.Red flags. Any pollution cases, fines, or lobbying against climate action?

You don’t need a glossy report to score well. Energy bills and supplier records count too.

The bands

What the bands mean

86+
Near the frontier
Close to the best possible. It would take top marks on almost everything, at scale.
75–85
Exceptional
Best in class. Very few companies get here.
60–74
Leading practice
Real leadership, backed by checked data and science-based targets.
46–59
Making progress
Real effort, with clear room to improve.
31–45
Below expectations
Some action, but big gaps.
16–30
Significant gaps
Major gaps in what it reports or what it does.
0–15
Critical concern
Little effort, or doing active harm.

Most companies score between 30 and 60. Scores above 75 are very rare.

Evidence

Where the evidence comes from

We start from public evidence. That means company reports, official filings, government registers and the news. It also includes groups that collect company climate data (such as CDP) or check climate targets (the Science Based Targets initiative).

A full score cites at least 8 live sources. At least 3 must come from outside the company. Every source is linked on the company’s page.

Sometimes there’s less evidence than that. We still publish, with a banner saying how much we found and what’s missing.

We don’t use websites that repackage other people’s figures. You can’t trace their numbers back to where they came from.

No emissions figure

If a company doesn’t publish its emissions

We still score it. It takes a 30% size deduction, the same as a company emitting 10 to 50 million tonnes a year.

It also scores low on the questions about emissions. Very small companies are treated differently. The full methodology explains how.

Money

Can a company pay?

Fees pay for the review, never the result.

A company can pay £99 for a person to check evidence that isn’t public, like energy bills or supplier data. We use the same ten questions. The score can go up or down, and the change is public.

Nobody pays to be scored. Challenging a score is always free.

Corrections

What if a score is wrong?

Tell us. Every question on every company page has a Challenge button. Pick the score you think is right and link to your evidence.

Anyone can do it, and it’s free. Challenges are public. If the evidence holds up, we change the score and credit you.

Every change is logged on the company’s page for good.

Every score starts as “Pending review”. That means it’s live, and anyone can challenge it.

The next level is “Verified”. An editor would give it once a score has held steady over time, with evidence from readers behind it. No score has reached Verified yet.

The formula, every industry’s starting point, the size bands, our sourcing rules and every change we’ve made are on one page.

Read the full methodology →