Introducing Our New
Political HazardRatings
Introducing Our New Political HazardRatings
Choose from these S&P 500 companies
Our Political Hazard (pH) ratings measure a corporation’s risk of facing a material consumer boycott or investor backlash from a political or social controversy.
A lot of companies have found themselves in the crosshairs of large consumer backlashes this year.
Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light (NYSE: BUD), Target Corp (NYSE: TGT), and VF Corp.’s (NYSE: VFC) North Face have all recently had material adverse impacts occur because of politics or social issues.
Now, with our new Political Hazard Ratings (pH ratings), you can help quantify the likelihood that a company will face a large consumer backlash in the future because of something they say or do.
In chemistry, the pH scale measures how acidic an object is. Our pH ratings measure how politically and socially hazardous corporations are.
“As a political data company, we are uniquely positioned to measure a company’s pH.” Abigail Wuest, CEO
Goods Unite Us has tracked corporate and senior executive political contributions for many years. We know which politicians corporations and their executives are supporting, and now we also track what corporations and executives are saying publicly, who they’re associating with, and whether those activities are likely to align with their consumers’ and investors’ sentiments.
Our proprietary pH rating is composed of five sub-category ratings:
• Public Statements Risk
• Associational Risk
• Political Contributions Risk
• Political Dichotomy Risk, and
• Brand Visibility Risk.
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Political Hazard (pH) Ratings Explained
A corporation’s Political Hazard Rating, or pH rating, is an overall assessment of the corporation’s likelihood of facing a material consumer boycott or investor backlash from a controversy caused by the company’s or its executives’ political activities and proclivities. The pH ratings range from 1 to 5, with a higher rating correlating with higher risk. The categories below are the components considered when setting a company’s pH rating.
Public Statements Risk
Rates the corporation based on its executives’ and the corporations’ own prior public political statements, including their frequency and whether they have tended to be, or actually have been, controversial or high-profile.
Political Dichotomy Risk
Rates the corporation based on the dichotomy, if any, between the executives’ and/or corporations’ own prior political contributions or statements and the likely political leaning of the corporation’s consumer base.
Political Contributions Risk
Rates the corporation based on the magnitude of the executives’ and/or corporations’ total political contributions to politicians and PACs, benchmarked to sector, and the weighted nature of those contributions as between political parties.
Associational Risk
Rates the corporation based on its executives’ and/or the corporation’s own prior political contributions and/or public association with particularly controversial people or high-profile politicians or PACs.
Brand Visibility Risk
Rates the corporation's risk relative to sector with higher risk being associated with higher brand visibility
