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Environmental and social responsibility may be about to become a factor in your online transactions, if Scryve, currently in an early beta stage, becomes a success. Which hopefully, it will do. Using ESG (environmental, social, and governance) responsibility statistics gathered from the leading company in the field, along with private and public research, Scryve aims to inform you about how responsibly a business does business, and not necessarily about what they sell or supply or maintain.

Every listing will show an overall mark from a maximum of 10, based on all three factors that the site evaluates. Is the company behaving in an environmentally responsible way? Is it socially responsible, not just to its customers, but society as a whole and its employees too? And the way it manages its operations, is it accountable and ethical? Is it working toward a more sustainable environment?

The reports already here are worth a read and will probably surprise you. A company that takes care of its customers may have a record of mistreating its employees; one that has a solid record of environmental responsibility may also be engaged in dubious competitive practices. A wide range of factors play a role in each company's final mark.

Eventually, it looks like there will be explanations of the final reports which show the research sources used. At the moment, that part of the site, and in fact most parts other than the basic company search, are in closed beta. You may add your email address if you'd like to get in on the next round of beta testing, however, and then you'll be able to see the rest and try out some extra features including a browser tool which will show you the ratings of company sites in real time.

We already know that a main source of data will be KLD Research & Analytics, an established leader in the field of financial advice for organizations and individuals seeking to invest responsibly. In turn KLD has recently been acquired by the Risk Metrics group, specialists in financial risk management. It's a fair assumption that data from these sources is going to be more reliable than most.

The functioning part of the site at the moment is the search, which is predictive, meaning that if you type an "A" you will see all companies with names beginning with A. You may find only two or three under one letter right now, as samples for the beta test, but it's still worth taking a look at what data is already availiable. You may never buy breakfast cereal again.

Keep an eye on this one, because I can see that not only will the onsite reports be useful as they are, but the overall rating system will be ideal for incorporating into other projects and toolbars and adding to search engine indexes in the same way that WOT currently presents its ratings.

In any event, anything that encourages companies to perform more responsibly, while encouraging consumers to purchase likewise, has to be a step in the right direction.