About This Project 

The UNFK site makes it quick and easy to see and understand the real environmental performance of all your favorite brands (minus the corporate greenwashing), then act on that information. To do this, we collect dozens of different data points from reputable watchdog organizations and distill them down into a single score. On each company’s UNFK page, you’ll get the company’s score, the details of how it was reached, contact information, and samples of things you can say to encourage that company to do better. If you have two minutes to send an email, make a phone call, or post something on social media, you have the power to get big companies to start cleaning up their messes and cooling the climate now. 

Who We Are

UNFK is a nonpartisan collective of designers, programmers, activists, and corporate accountability specialists giving people powerful new ways to address the climate crisis, transform its root causes, and help accelerate the post-carbon economy. We receive support from the Climate Emergency Fund, established by Rory Kennedy, Aileen Getty, and Trevor Neilson. 

How We Create the UNFK Score

The UNFK score is designed to answer an urgent question: how much is any given company really doing to clean up its mess right now? 

To create the scores, we gather information and ratings from some of the world's most respected climate and environmental justice watchdogs, data journalists, and corporate accountability groups. We favor robust, high quality data sets that take a multi-faceted approach to understanding a company’s environmental profile and performance. We give special weight to groups closely tracking whether or not a company’s sustainability goals are based in science and aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement. 

We also determine how much or how little a company is sharing with the public about its climate goals and impact in general. We scrutinize how much money is flowing to the U.S. politicians with the worst environmental track records from the political action committees of companies and their workforces. We figure out how cozy companies are with the industry lobbying groups that fight good climate laws. We investigate whether or not a company banks or invests with institutions that are still funding fossil fuel projects.    

Then, we distill all that information into a single number. The higher a company's score, the less FKed it is. (And that’s a good thing!) The lower it is, the more work that company still has to do to fix what is broken, heal what is harmed, and UNFK what is FKed. 

Note: our method for calculating the UNFK score is continuously being fine tuned and updated as new data sets and other information becomes available. Scores are not relative to one another, but rather are absolute, as this scoring system is designed to measure what is actually required to address the climate crisis.

Elements of the UNFK Score

Some things that can lower a company's UNFK score:

• Polluting and harming the environment
• Maintaining ties to anti-environment industry lobbying groups
• Supporting politicians with bad environmental track records
• Opposing climate and environment-protecting legislation
• Withholding details of climate and environmental impact 
• Neglecting to make/keep strong environmental justice commitments
• Banking with financial institutions that fund fossil fuel projects
• Committing health and environmental violations that disproportionately impact Indigenous communities and people of color

Some things that can raise a company's UNFK score:

• Measuring and sharing carbon emissions and other key climate metrics
• Creating science-based, Paris-aligned goals and following through 
• Having a strong environmental justice framework and range of activities
• Establishing robust sustainability and ethical practices
• Using best-practices level frameworks for reporting environmental data 
• Banking and investing with institutions that cut or do not have fossil fuel ties
• Supporting the strongest possible climate legislation
• Backing staunchly pro-environment politicians  

Sources of data and insights for this project:

• Open Secrets
• CDP (formerly: Carbon Disclosure Project)
• Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi)
• The Carbon Bankroll Report
• The As You Sow Racial Justice Scorecard
• The As You Sow Road to Net Zero Report 
• Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)
• Good On You Sustainable Fashion Ratings 
• Divestment Database 
• League of Conservation Voters 
• Influence Map
• Ballotpedia

More details on what the UNFK score includes:

• Percent of company's corporate political action committee (PAC) contributions going to politicians with the worst and best environmental track records
• Relationships with anti-environmental lobbying groups: Business Roundtable, Chamber of Commerce, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
• Influence Map’s evaluation of how politically supportive or not a company is on Paris Agreement-aligned climate policy
• Measurement & disclosure of carbon emissions to Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
• The setting of science-based climate goals through the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi)
• The rating of environmental goals, disclosures, and performance through the As You Sow Road to Net Zero report
• A company’s level of commitment to environmental justice and racial justice, using over two dozen metrics from the As You Sow Racial Justice Scorecard
• Banking with and/or investing in financial institutions that fund fossil fuel projects
• The number of best practices-level Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks used by a company to guide its annual reporting
• For fashion brands, the Good On You sustainability rating
• Whether or not a company has been flagged as a major polluter/emitter by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)