Welcome to the bilumi research guide.
Our current research focus is the chocolate industry. We're trying to create a detailed supply chain model of the effects of chocolate on its way to our shelf. But don't feel limited by the official research focus. You can enter reviews about ANY socially responsible product information. So... how much time do you want to spend helping out?
Two Minutes
Ten Minutes
The following resources list or review companies and products in their own way. Feel free add any company listings that you find which are currently missing from our browse pages. And of course feel free to create reviews about those companies. Remember, bilumi reviews must be linked to specific socially responsible interests so they can be automatically accessed by users with different points of view. Any product or company ratings that you find on the following sites will be on a different scale from ours. So make sure to add your own commentary and a link back to where you found the information. Other users will rate the companies and products based on each of your reviews with our 1-9 scale.
Chocolate listings:
- New Dream - fair trade chocolate listing.
- Green Promise - organic chocolate makers listing.
- Chocolocate.com
- Choco Guide
- Stop Chocolate Slavery - guide to fair trade chocolate companies]
General Review sites:
- Coop-America - Excellently organized shopping information.
- Better World Shopper - A report card on multinationals listed by industry.
- Knowmore.org - Wiki Pages with socially responsible information about major brands.
- Ethiscore - subscription based socially responsible buying guide.
Label and Certification sites:
- Greener Choices - guide of what labels mean.
- Eco Labeling - a listing of what the many independent labels mean - if a label is not yet listed in our system then consider adding it and creating reviews about it so that the products that have that label can inherit its ratings.
Health/Safety Sites:
- Overall Nutritional Quality Index - Dr. Katz's summary guide.
- Healthy Toys - Listing of toys that have been checked for lead paint.
Kosher Listings:
- Kosher Products - includes Kosher chocolate listings.
- Keeping Kosher
Green reviews:
- Climate Counts - listing of ratings about corporate climate change.
- National Geographic's guide to responsible shopping.
- Wikia Green - contains information on some companies.
- Sustain Lane - Explores new products that are healthy for the planet.
- Izzit Green green ratings of services.
- UpOnGreen - listing of environmental companies and user comments (careful, their listings seem to be of companies that have paid to be listed).
Cosmetics sites:
- Cosmetics Database - guide to cosmetic product info.
Mashup and volunteer review sites:
- Citizens Market - This site is REALLY similar to ours and we're discussing more active collaboration.
- GoodGuide - Boils outside product reviews to the details (careful, they seem to list factors as perfect 10s if they don't find any negative information.)
- DoTheRightThing.com - Anecdotal reviews of products and companies.
Thirty minutes
These resources are straightforward, but they are not presorted into company and product reviews. Use them to find information that interests you and draft your own conclusions. Remember to site where and what you are basing your conclusions on when you create your own reviews!
- MBDC "Cradle to Cradle" Certifications
- Find specific sources for what you're looking for -search by product name, by ingredient, by social concern, etc.
- Social Accountability Accreditation Services - listing of facilities in excel or pdf format (not easily searchable.)
- KLD research analytics Socially Responsible Corporate Index
- hooze.org - Wiki Pages
- Source Map - incomplete guide to where materials come from.
- Panjiva ratings of textile industry outsourcing.
- US Dept of Agriculture - Organic Certification based on Comparatively Loose Standards
Chocolate
- Here is some scouting information that we've done to get you started on finding out about the chocolate industry: http://bilumi.org/trac/wiki/ChocolateResearchNotes.
- Fair Trade Chocolate Blog
An hour or more
Resources in this category require some real investigation. This is where you should go if you're interested in probing deeply or creating scholarly reviews!
- Corporate research resources
- Map Ecos - Information on Pollution and Improvement Efforts.
- Global Reporting Initiative - voluntary socially responsible company reports
- Lexis-nexis - listing of companies and their subsidiaries. Consider creating new supply chain and company links based on this information. Requires subscription but school libraries often have one.
- Factiva - searchable business news. Requires subscription but school libraries often have one.
- http://web2.westlaw.com - legal information database. Requires subscription but school libraries often have one.
- your local public library, university libraries, etc.
- Searchable public records
Note
Issues in social science research
Todo for this page
- add links for getting involved
- add invitation to add more
- add whois search
- look through "contacts" for orgs and people (such as Better World Shopping Guide)
- look at campus resources
- add to google outreach wiki page (add asa groups, etc.)
Did you get here from Buy It Like You Mean It's consumer empowerment application? Feel free to edit this wiki (help).
Visit the front page for more information about the development team and our process, accomplishments and code.
