In the desert to the west of my city is Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the largest power plant in the United States. It is run by Arizona Public Service (which is a very altruistic name). Just south of me is an Intel fab plant; their second largest site in the United States. As far as I am aware, both of these organizations are responsible corporate citizens.
But how would I know?
Both Intel and APS have wonderful websites. I’m certain they publish corporate reports.
But what are the environmental impacts of their respective plants? What are their labor practices? How are nearby residents affected by these corporations’ production activity?
Should I rely on local media, themselves owned by corporations, to provide transparency?
Fortunately, a project exists where community members can contribute information about corporations. The composite curated by WikiRate assists citizens and corporations understand local impacts.
Extracted from http://wikirate.org/About_WikiRate
WikiRate spurs corporations to be transparent and responsive by shining a light on their social and environmental impacts.
Corporations affect our world in countless ways. If we want more power to shape those impacts, first we must be able to see them.
Lots of information exists on the social and environmental practices of businesses. What’s missing is context. That’s where WikiRate comes in.
WikiRate is a place for everyone to bring together information on corporate practices, evaluate it, and determine what gaps need to be filled.
As we get answers to the questions that matter to us as a community, an increasingly detailed picture emerges.
We encourage people and organisations to use WikiRate as a platform for advocacy, teaching, and research and analysis.
Extracted from http://wikirate.org/Using_WikiRate
Data Quality
WikiRate’s approach to data quality is to put information in the public domain and provide a space where we can discuss it and establish its merits. Is the answer to a certain question about a companies’ behaviour worth knowing? Is information from a certain source trustworthy? WikiRate is a place where we figure out the answers to these questions together and share them with the world.
To make this work, we need people who know about a subject, or who are willing to do some research to find out about it – to contribute their knowledge on WikiRate. This is as much about figuring out which information is worth knowing as it is about collecting it in the first place.