This document is published (at https://directory.ethicalbrand.com/terms/individual-member-terms) (the "Website") by the Ethical Brand Foundation ("EBF") a not for profit company limited by guarantee and incorporated in England & Wales (No. 8652927) at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU.

The Parties to this Agreement are the EBF and "you" the user of (the "website"). By reading this document and continuing to register as an Individual Member you are accepting the terms set out herein, which includes our Data Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

How it works

Individual membership is free of charge and subject to your participation in our research. When you nominate an ethical brand or share your brand experience with us, you are making a valued contribution to our research and Individual Membership is designed reward you for that in a number of ways. Your membership will remain valid for an initial period of 3 months.

Sharing Your Brand Experiences

Every contribution to our research is validated to ensure that it is worthy of inclusion in our methodology, which underpins all of our licensing decisions. Our validation procedures aim to satisfy us that a) you are a real person; b) that the subject brand (organisation) is a de‐facto business or not‐for‐profit enity and c) ensure that any experience(s) you share with us are based on your personal experience.

Submissions must not be based on hearsay, personalised or flippant. We do not entertain conspiracy theories or situations and events that are historically significant but no longer relevant in the present context. In short, your experience needs to be meaningful, current and verifiable for the purposes of our research and we do not process or respond to submissions that fail this test. We may also contact you to conduct further cerification and or clarification.

In rare cases we may accept experiences submitted on behalf of a third party who is unable or incapable of making a personal submission, provided they are personally known to you and that they too are able to be contacted and they agree to participate in our research. You will need to make it clear that you are acting on behalf of a third party when filing your experience and include their contact details.

We use a variety of methods to validate submissions and your membership will be confirmed once your submission has been validated ‐ if not immediately, then typically within a few days. Once your membership has been confirmed, there is no limit to the number of experiences you can share with us. However, if you share an experience that is found to be invalid for any reason, your registration will fail and your submission with not be processed. If you submit an experience that fails validation after your membership has been confirmed, your membership will be suspended and may be terminated without notice.

Nomination Rewards

Each new Individual Member is provided with an initial quota of 5 nomination tokens. If you have a personal experience, or relationship with a particular brand, which you to believe to be worthy of ethical brand status, then you can nominate that organisation as an ethical brand. Each nomination costs you one token. We review and conduct initial research on each nominated organisation.

If the subject of your nomination has not already been nominated by another Individual Member during the past 3 months and if it appears to meet our criteria for eb&atrade; Certification, we will invite the owner, a partner or senior executive to join the eb™ community, with a invitation key sent on your behalf, entitling that organisation to a special, invitation only rate.

If your nominated organisation chooses to seek eb™ Certification and joins our community of Commercial Members within 3 months, you will be rewarded. Rewards vary according to many factors but generally take the form of vouchers ranging in value from US$20 to US$1,000 or more, to spend with any member organisation. Your quota of nomination tokens will also be reset back to the maximum of 5 each time your nominated ethical brand joins our community. If you run out of nomination tokens you can replenish your quota by sharing your brand experiences. One token per experience submitted.

Nominations are not accepted from business owners, or senior, board level executives of nominated entities and their families. We only accept nominations from de‐facto, independent stakeholders, such as: non-executives and employees, independent shareholders, customers, suppliers and business partners. Any submissions containing false information and any attempts to game our system will result in the termination of those Individual and or Commercial Memberships involved and black'listing.

Positivity has its own power

If you have experienced a positive, uplifting, value for money interaction with a brand, we want to know about them but most importantly, the people inside the organisation you have had this experience need to know when they have positively impacted you.

When you submit positive brand experiences for our our Commercial Members (those appearing in the ethical brand directory), we reward them with discounted membership renewal rates and office treats, based on the weight of positive brand experience reports we facilitate.

We are committed to assisting our Commercial Members to foster personal and corporate integrity, using facts. Good facts lift and empower teams. Ethical brands thrive on facts. Data about how they're performing on a broad range of social, environmental, commercial and economic needs, interests and concerns. Your contributions to our research is very much appreciated and could bring you some great rewards.

Negativity

In the event that you share a validated brand experience of a negative nature, your submission may be joined with other cases and in any event, presented to the relevant owner, partner or senior executive with an invitation to respond. We catalogue these experiences and use all of the information tools at our disposal, to bring your matter to a conclusion that is satisfying to both parties. We stand for reason

If the subject organisation is a Commercial Member of our community, appearing in the Ethical Brand directory, then the Sponsor (owner, partner or senior executive) is required, under our Commercial Membership Terms to respond to and make every reasonable effort to resolve your issue(s) or concern(s) within a reasonable period ‐ typically a maximum of 30 days, which may be extended on a case by case basis.

If no mutually satisfying resolution is reached within a reasonable period of time and after every reasonable effort has been made to do so, we will make a final determination to bring your case to a close. In the event that we determine that either party has acted unreasonably and or in bad faith, we may suspend or cancell their membership.

Data Sharing

When you share a validated brand experience with us, we may share that information with the subject organisation so that they know how they are performing and discern what action, if any, they may need to take. We catalogue and index all validated brand experience submissions as well as all related communications between you, ourselves and the subject organisation, which you will have access to for the duration of your membership.

Member organisations

Subject organisations that are also members of this community will automatically have access to the substance of your validated submission, including your name and email address. In that case, you may be added to their marketing database. If your experience rating was poor, then you may be expecting a response. If that response is not forthcoming and provided we agree that a response of some kind is necessary, we will take up the matter directly with the member organisation on your behalf.

Non‐member organisations

If the subject organisation is not a member of this community we will not automatically share the substance of your reported experience with them. Most negatively rated submissions accumulate in our system until we have a weight of evidence that is worth sharing on social media, which has tendency to bring out the best in most organisations. So, if you have friends with similar experiences, be sure to introduce us to them.

Anonymity

We do not accept anonymous submissions. If the subject of your brand experience submission is a member of this community then our standard procedure is to share your name, email address, and your submission with the member organisation. This enables them to make direct contact with you for whatever reason, whether that is to show their appreciation and or to satisfy a concern you may have reported. However, under certain circumstances, you may feel wish to remain anonymous to the subject organisation and we get that.

Member organisations

Remaining anonymous to the subject organisation is not encouraged. However, if you wish to remain anonymous to the subject organisation you will be provided with the opportunity to request this when you're ready to file your brand experience report. If you elect to withold your identity from the subject organisation, please ensure that your reason(s) are clear in your submission. If your reasons for requesting that you remain anonymous to the subject organisation are not stated, or at the very least obvious, your submission may not be processed, in which case your registration may also fail. If you choose to remain anonymous and your reaons clear, then all communications between the subject organisation and you will be facilitated via our secure digital platform. You will be represented by an alias in all our communications with the subject organisation.

Non-member organisations

If you submit a positive brand experience concerning a subject organisation that is not a member of our community, we may choose to share the substance of that experience with them and offer them your name and email address. If you rated your experience as as anything other than positive you will remain anonymous to that entity, if we ever present it to them. Such contributions however, remain useful for the purposes of our research. It may help to "join dots". It may also be useful to draw attention to issues that are of particular concern to our members, with policy'makers and the public. In that case we may extract and use quotes from your submission for publicity purposes, but we will never identify you as the source in any such material without your express permission.

Use of the eb™ Symbol

As an Individual Member you have the right to display the eb™ for personal use only. That is, provided you do so responsibly and in good faith.. For example, you can use our trademark symbol on social media to let your friends, family and calleagues know that you care about the social, environmental and economic impast of your spending and investment decisions. However, please note that we do not tolerate any misuse of our identity.

You may not use our identity in any commercial context that is not licensed through commercial membership. Do not use our identity in any political context, or any setting that promotes aggression and hatred of any kind. If we become aware of any such misuse, your membership will be terminated and you will also be required to immediately cease and desist. In the event of flagrant misuse, we reserve the right to take whatever legal action that is necessary and appropriate to ensure that you do so immediately and we may also seek to recover any associated costs as well as damages.

Conclusion

We are opening Free Individual Members to the first 1,000 people who register for individual membership. This round of Free Membership will then be closed. At the end of 3 months your membership will be reviewd. If you have not submitted any additional brand experiences and if any of your original quota of 5 invitation tokens remain unused, your account may be closed without notice. However, if you have submitted multiple brand experience reports and nominated at least 5 ethical brands, you will be awarded Gold Individual Membership for 12 months. If you remain an active member at the end of that 12 month period you will be awarded Free Lifetime Individual Membership.

We retain the right to make all final decisions concerning registration, membership and brand experience submissions. If you have any specific questions concerning Individual Membership, please use this contact form to submit your queries. Sorry, but telephone enquiries and support concerning individual registrations, brand experience submissions and membership is only available to registered members. If you are not yet registered, please use the this contact form. We will respond as quickly as possible.

Last Updated: Friday, 08 September 2023

Printed: Monday, 21 September 2026 10:19:10 AM [UTC time]