Scryve Set to "Become the Zagat of the Environmental and Social World"
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 12.10.08
Scryve is a green ranking for companies so that you can quickly and easily see how businesses rank in greenness, and compare companies to make more environmentally conscience purchasing decisions without having to spend hours looking up company info and doing your own analysis.
As the creators say, they're set to be the Zagat of greenness.
Basically, you can search their site or download a widget you can install so that a ranking pops up on the website you’re visiting. Read on for more about how their ranking works, how you can utilize their database, and how you can get them $40k to expand green rankings.
How Scryve Works
Scryve's ranking is based on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the most green. Based on a company’s environmental and social records, they’re given a number. A user will see the ranking number, and can read more details about why the company earned, say, a 5. Readers are given a “big picture narrative” rather than intricate details about the company’s history, making at-a-glance reference easier.
Scryve Generalizes the Details for Quick Reference
If you’re searching for highly personalized info about the company, this isn’t the tool for you. It’s really more for quick reference and comparison. The information provided in each area that is used for ranking is boilerplate. You'll get the same write up for the same ranking in certain areas - basically telling you the gist of what they're doing in that area that earned them their number. They don't go into detail about specific actions or policies for each company - which is perfectly understandable considering they already have thousands of rankings and are working on ever expanding their database. It'd take countless hours to keep on top of highly personalized info for each company in the database.
If you're shopping for a pair of pants but don’t like the low ranking of the company you’re browsing from, Scryve will give you alternative companies that have similar products and higher rankings so you can make a greener purchase.
How Scryve Gets Their Info
Scryve gets its ranking info from KLD, a major investment research firm. Scryve boils down the info and ranks the company, highlighting the good and bad about the company’s actions and policies. The rankings are updated regularly, so as companies improve their actions, their ranking goes up.
And all of this happens so you can quickly and easily know where companies stand when it comes to environmental and social issues.
Like it? Want to help Scryve win $40k?
WIRED is having a contest and 5 companies have been selected to compete for the prize. All you have to do is go to WIRED’s website, check out the videos from the companies, and vote for who you like best. Scryve, of course, is among them and we really like what they’re doing. If you do too, you can lend them your vote.
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The information they're getting from KLD is pretty out-of-date, maybe up to 5 years for some companies. Their listings are anything but comprehensive and they don't let you see any of the underlying data that they're basing their summarizations on. How can anyone believe a company like this if it has a) only 1 source of data and b) doesn't reveal any detailed information supporting their claims.
Like we should believe what they or some previously unkown three-letter-acronym company has to say. Whenever I see something like this (opinion without supporting evidence, dates, etc) I question their motives and begin with the assumption that they're just spouting trash to get eyeballs on ads.
Scryve is a 1 on my personal scale [1-10, 10 being best]. Pretty arbitrary, huh?
Good idea, bad execution, ugly design.
I think you have some fair points Chris, but I also don't think I've seen this amount of information anywhere else online.
And though there isn't tons of detail, their research company (KLD) is huge in CSR investing (They and Innovest are the two biggest American research groups), and they take submissions from users, so there's a lot of room for growth.
Interesting, from what i understand scryve gets its data from three sources. KLD, hired researchers, and a slightly strict version of a wiki.
Anyway I think your both barking up the wrong tree. The great part about this site is that with enough users it can offer more company profiles and alternatives then anything we've seen before. I mean i don't know where else I would go to find out about Papa Johns or any other midsized company.
Its a resource, no more, no less.
See:
http://www.scryve.com/xwiki/bin/view/Participate/Particpate and http://www.scryve.com/xwiki/bin/view/Partnership/Partnership
Zagat doesn't buy information to republish it. So I really don't think they are set to be the Zagat of anything.
Well I think its great!
Well I think its great!
Well I think is all in the intention, I think Scryve has a lot of potential considering they are dealing with information that is very hard to come by. Companies are not very forthcoming about how they do business and finding out about them is really hard so I think this is a great service.