A Strategic Communications Capstone - University of Oregon
Explore What Sustainability Claims Mean
The Illumination Index is a prototype communication audit that uses 11 indicators to examine alignment between companies’ public sustainability claims and the evidence reviewed for this project.
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.
picture.
The data is already out there. The Illumination Index puts it in one place.
What does a sustainability claim tell you?
A company’s message and the information needed to interpret it may appear in different places. The Illumination Index brings selected claims and relevant records together, giving you a starting point for closer reading.
How to use the Illumination Index:
Choose a company to explore
Browse the companies evaluated using the Illumination Index prototype.
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 findings can inform consumers’ consideration of sustainability communications. They do not provide a complete assessment of a company or its products.
Understanding a claim starts with understanding the sources.
What the Index Examines
A sustainability claim and the information needed to evaluate it may appear in different places. A short advertisement may communicate a goal, while a report explains its baseline, progress or limitations.
The Illumination Index is for people who want to understand the information behind sustainability messages, the site connects selected claims with findings, sources, and limitations.
Public claim
A statement selected from a company website, advertisement, social post, press release or other reviewed communication.
Evidence and context
The documents used to examine that statement. A company report is not automatically independent verification. A legal allegation is not a finding of wrongdoing.
Research, translated into usable context.
The approach
The communication problem is the distance between a brief sustainability message and the information consumers need to interpret it.
The Illumination Index applies strategic communications by organizing research around a defined audience and task: helping consumers examine a claim, understand the relevant evidence and recognize the limits of a finding.
The website presents a plain-language summary first, followed by interpretation, indicator findings and sources. Future user testing could assess whether visitors understand the index direction, locate evidence and distinguish communication alignment from sustainability performance.
Seven companies.
Seven illustrative applications.
The company examples demonstrate how the Illumination Index can organize sustainability communications and related evidence across different reporting contexts. They are not a representative sample, a comprehensive industry comparison or a ranking.
Explore a company’s selected claims, findings, indicator values and sources.
Amazon
Unilever
Audience research
Research on sustainability messages.
A consumer perception survey conducted alongside the project explored familiarity with sustainability terminology, responses to claims and preferences for supporting information.
The survey is one source of audience insight for this prototype. It does not demonstrate that the website increases trust, changes purchasing behavior or provides independent verification of corporate claims.
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.