Frequently asked questions

etiki uses a NLP (natural language processing) algorithm to analyse a text and suggest the Category (People, Environment, Animal, …) and the Tendency (positive, negative, controversial) of an uploaded article. So far it is a prototype and only works for English articles. As it is a machine, it still can be wrong. Thus, when you add a new Impact Event you need to check the suggested Category and the Tendency. Especially for articles uploaded in languages other than English.

etiki is designed like Wikipedia by volunteers. They can upload the URL of news articles to the website and have these articles categorized. "Moderators" make sure that inappropriate (satirical articles, targeted insults, false information etc.) or duplicate articles are removed or articles with incorrect categorization are correctly categorized.

It is important that impact events are related to ethical or sustainable behaviour of companies. For example, financial reports etc. are not included unless they have an ethical or sustainable reference.

See also What information can I find on this prototype?

It is important to understand that etiki does not evaluate (e.g. good or bad) impact events regarding sustainable and ethical behaviour but solely categorizes them based on the content of the article. The classification allows the readers to make up their own mind about their view on organizations and their behaviour. Etiki does not give any inputs regarding which behaviour is better or worse, but it aims to give a tool to filter content to the readers need.

etiki is designed like Wikipedia and therefore created and maintained by volunteers, so called etiki-heroes. They can upload the URL of new news articles to the website and have these articles categorized. "Moderators" make sure that inappropriate (satirical articles, targeted insults, false information etc.) or duplicate articles are removed or articles with incorrect categorization are correctly categorized.

Anyone can add an Impact Event by uploading an article (go to "New Impact Event").
We appreciate your contribution to etiki!

Be aware that
• Only approved Impact Events are shown in the search results
• Only experienced users ("Moderators") can approve an Impact Event

In detail:
• you add a url
• text gets analysed. Some attributes are suggested by our NLP algorithm
• you check the suggested attributes and define the remaining ones
• a "Moderator" approves your Impact Event
• Your Impact Event appears in the search results

See also How are the articles (“impact events”) collected?

See also Why do have some users have more rights than others?

See also Automatic categorization of uploaded articles (by NLP)

See also What are impact events?

Like Wikipedia, etiki is operated by volunteers. Volunteers (“etiki Heroes”) can make their contribution by uploading the URL of news articles to the website and having these articles categorized. In addition, "moderators" are provided to remove inappropriate articles (satirical articles, targeted insults, false information etc.) or to correctly categorize articles in case of incorrect categorization.

On etiki, articles (news articles, research papers, reports etc.) about sustainable and ethical behaviour of companies are collected. Each article or incident is called an “impact event” which is categorized into one of the following five main categories: Animals, People, Politics, Product & Services and Environment. Additionally, they are classified in one of the following three sentiments: positive, negative or controversial.

Each impact event can be tagged with topics depending on the main category (e.g. category: “people", tag: child labor; category: “politics”, tag: bribery; etc.). The tags are not obligatory but enable more transparency and easier filter options.

The impact events are assigned to one of the following five main categories:

People
E.g.: Child labour; Slavery etc.

Animals
E.g.: Fur farms in Indonesia

Environment
E.g.: Deforestation for Palm oil

Product & Services
E.g.: Weapons

Politics
E.g.: Bribery of government or financial support of a rebel organization to ensure a certain political order in a country.

Each impact event is also categorized by the sentiment:

Positive: a good, constructive or useful feature, quality or behaviour; ethical and sustainable behaviour.

Negative: A feature, quality or behaviour that is unpleasant, harmful or destructive; non-ethical and non-sustainable behaviour.

Controversial: Contains both positive and negative aspects, so it cannot be clearly defined as positive or negative. It is subject of intense public debate.

• etiki database focuses exclusively on ethical and sustainable behaviour of companies
• etiki database does not create or write new content, but rather categorizes existing articles according
to the etiki framework
• Thus, volunteers contributing to etiki have less work to do and also less power than on wikipedia
• etiki is still a prototype

etiki is a Swiss non-profit organization which is financed through donations and funding by independent parties. etiki wants to make sure to stay free of advertising. To ensure credibility and neutrality of the etiki database, etiki refrains from taking donations from any private company which could have an interest in manipulating the content or framework of the database.

• Impact events are defined as events or incidents of ethical or sustainable behavior of companies.
• They are either positive, negative or controversial (depending on the sentiment of the article).
• At least one news article or report assigned to each impact event.

The donut chart gives an overview and ratio of the sentiments of all collected impact events per company / organisation.

Content and usability of this prototype are limited. We have about 400 "impact events" (at least one news article assigned to each "impact event") in our database. So far there are only a few people who select and upload articles. Therefore you will not find many companies or information about companies yet.

The list view provides a list of all the impact events according to the set filters and search criterias.

For example: If you wish to see all impact events of Nike, you can enter “Nike” to the search area, and it will list all impact events within the etiki database. Furthermore, you will get a short summary and the following additional information for each impact event:
• Category indicates to which of the five categories the impact events belongs whereas the color defines if it is negative, positive or controversial.
• Topics allow to differentiate the impact event with a more detailed tag, e.g. “land rights abuse”, “child labour” etc. It will give you an idea, what the impact event is about.
• Company: indicates the company involved in the impact event
• Country: indicates where the impact event took place
• Published in: grants the source of the impact event
• Date: date when the impact event happened or the date of the report

A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. The current version of etiki you see is still a prototype and allows us to test functionality and design to iteratively improve it.

etiki is an online platform that brings transparency to the ethical and sustainable behaviour of companies. On etiki, organizations and interested consumers can inform themselves quickly, easily and for free about the behaviour of a company with regards to ethics and sustainability. It is intended to make these aspects an indispensable part of the economy and society.

etiki is created and maintained as an open collaboration project by a community of volunteer helpers, using an etiki-based classification framework.

etiki aims to make ethical and sustainable behavior of corporates accessible to everyone and as such indispensable in the economy of today and tomorrow.

Behind etiki is an independent Swiss non-profit organization. It works like Wikipedia, where voluntary people (“etiki-Heroes”) can upload, categorize and supervise (“etiki-Moderators”) as many articles and impact events as possible.

Therefore, etiki provides the framework for the categorization and operates the website.

In order to make the upload and categorization as easy as possible, etiki collaborates with the University of Applied Sciences Northwest Switzerland (FHNW). Together they are working on an intelligent algorithm to automatically categorize incoming news articles based on natural language processing.

etiki is run by the community. We all benefit from knowledge and work done by other members of the community.

We want to acknowledge when someone has a deep understanding of a topic. Thus, more experienced users will have more rights.

The Idea
- The more a user contributes to etiki (Reputation), the more rights (Privileges) the user will have
- e.g. for every added and approved Impact Event a user increases their Reputation by 1 point

With a higher Reputation you can for example:
- Define the Relevance of an article / of an Impact Event
- Approve an Impact Event added by another user
- Report users that try to manipulate information

1. Information overload:
In the age of information technology, we are exposed to a flood of information on a daily basis. In this abundance of information, it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish the important from the unimportant. Additionally, algorithms determine based on our analyzed profiles which content and advertisements are displayed to us. etiki helps to find crucial information about ethics and sustainability of companies by providing a user-friendly, understandable and transparent database/platform.

2. Megatrend ecology and sustainability:
Society is attributing an increasingly important role to the ethical and sustainable behaviour of companies and their products and services and would like to incorporate this into its consumption decisions. To make this possible, etiki provides a user-friendly database for free, where people can inform themselves about ethics and sustainability of companies.

3. User-centered design approach

Currently etiki is still a prototype. To be able to address as many people as possible, etiki concentrates to date on English language articles (01 March 2020). Other languages like German and Spanish are already on the roadmap.

We want transparency. Therefore, everyone should know who* uploaded articles to etiki.
When you are signed up you can:
- save your search and filter settings
- create new impact events by uploading news articles to etiki
- up and down vote relevance of Impact Events and Sources

*we do not publish personal data except the username (and data the user wants to share).