Sustainability claims are everywhere.
The evidence behind them can be harder to find.
The Illumination Index is a prototype communication audit that compares companies’ public sustainability claims with reported and documented evidence.
Unilever
Companies communicate about sustainability through websites, advertising, social media, product messaging and public commitments. The evidence behind those claims often appears in sustainability reports, financial filings, third-party records and other public sources.
The Illumination Index brings that information together to make the relationship between what a company communicates and what the available evidence shows easier to understand.
What Companies Say Publicly
"Committed to a sustainable future"
"Carbon neutral by 2040"
"Net zero"
"100% renewable energy"
vs.
What the Evidence Shows
Emissions filings
Third-party audit records
Court and regulatory proceedings
Annual data
The gap between those two sources, measured across eleven indicators, produces the Illumination Index value.
What the Illumination Index is
A prototype communication audit that compares companies’ public sustainability claims with reported and documented evidence.
Most sustainability frameworks were designed for investors and analysts. They evaluate environmental outputs: emission volume, water usage, supply chain practices. The Illumination Index evaluates something different: the degree to which a company's public sustainability communications align with its own formally reported data.
The Index measures how closely public sustainability communications align with available evidence. It does not measure overall sustainability performance.
The Illumination Index does not measure how sustainable a company is or determine whether a company intended to mislead.
How to Use the Illumination Index
A Helpful Tip
Reference the glossary to familiarize yourself with relevant terminology.
1. Choose a Company to Explore
Browse the companies evaluated using the Illumination Index prototype.
OR
Suggest a company for future evaluation.
2. Read the Index
See what the index found. This is where a company's claims held up against its own data, and where gaps were detected.
3. Decide for Yourself
Use the evidence to make more informed decisions about the companies behind the products you buy.
The Illumination Index lines up two sources for every company.
Public Communications
Company website sustainability pages
Social media and press releases
Executive communications (CEO letters)
Annual reports via social media
Consumer-facing marketing claims
Formal Reported Data
ESG/Sustainability reports
Third-party audit and verification records
Regulatory Findings
Court Proceedings
Annual emissions data
The gap between those two sources, measured across eleven indicators, produces the Illumination Index value.
Sneak Peek
Amazon Case Study
Amazon publishes one of the most detailed sustainability reports in this dataset. The volume is real, however, absolute emissions stand 34% above the baseline of the Climate Pledge Amazon co-founded. That calculation does not appear anywhere in Amazon's sustainability communications, neither does the class action lawsuit filed four months before the report was published. The lawsuit challenged environmental labels on certain Amazon Basics paper products. The allegations remain pending and are included because they directly concern consumer-facing sustainability claims.
Illumination Index value: 19 / 22
A higher value means more gaps were found between what a company says and what its data shows.
Survey Findings Conducted Alongside the Research
What is ESG?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. This is a broad view of looking at how a company addresses issues such as environmental impact, treatment of people and communities, and corporate leadership and accountability.
71%
described themselves as skeptical or actively distrustful of generic sustainability claims.
81%
had little or no familiarity with the term ESG before participating in the survey.
52%
identified independent third-party verification as the factor most likely to increase their trust in a sustainability claim.
This is what the Illumination Index provides.
Companies in this Prototype
Selected to demonstrate the framework across different industries and disclosure behaviors. These are illustrative applications of a prototype, not a definitive ranking.
Lower value = greater alignment
Higher value = more gaps detected
Every finding on this site is drawn from publicly available sources including sustainability reports, regulatory filings, third-party audits, and court records.
This framework organizes that information so consumers can draw their own conclusions.
The data is already out there. The Illumination Index puts it in one place.