The Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI) is the world’s first quantitative assessment system based on brand’s environmental management of their supply chains in China, jointly developed by IPE and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 2013. The index uses government supervision data, online monitoring data, third party environmental audits, and other public information to dynamically assess the environmental performance of brands’ supply chains.
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What is the scope of CITI evaluation?
CITI evaluates brand companies. In
2021, the evaluation scope covered 613 brands across 21 industries. A brand is
included in the CITI evaluation scope after IPE has attempted to contact the
company regarding a suspected supplier with violation record(s).
As corporate environmental information disclosure in China continues to improve, the CITI evaluation scope will continue to expand to more industries.
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What are the major areas that CITI evaluates?
The evaluation examines the following five areas:
1. Responsiveness and transparency: How does the brand respond to environmental violations by suppliers?
2. Compliance and corrective action: Does the brand screen its suppliers to ensure their environmental compliance? If there is an existing violation, does the brand require corrective action and information disclosure?
3. Extended green supply chain practices: Does the brand promote green supply chain expansion upstream to resolve high impact pollution issues?
4. Energy conservation and emissions reduction: Does the brand push suppliers to disclose energy conservation and emissions reduction targets, as well as pollution emissions transfer data?
5. Performance disclosure: Does the brand push consumers to pay attention to the environmental impacts of product life-cycles?
For more details, see the full guidelines here:
Green Supply Chain CITI Fact Sheet (Updated May 2022)
Green Supply Chain CITI Evaluation Guidelines 9.0 (Updated March 2022)
IPE uses publicly available information to score each brand’s environmental management of their supply chains in China out of 100, according to CITI evaluation criteria. Brands are then ranked according to score.
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How often are CITI rankings updated?
CITI rankings and scores are updated continuously
throughout the year. IPE keeps in regular communication with brands and adjusts CITI scores and rankings according to materials provided by brands (only publicly available information can influence CITI scores).
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How often are CITI reports published?
Since 2014, the CITI evaluation report has been published once every year. Although
scores are updated throughout the year, the report compares brand scores
approximately a month before publication in the fall of each year.
Read the CITI reports from 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
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