Barbara, I think what Trust Across America has done here is noteworthy.

There are a lot of trust studies out there on the trustworthiness of companies and sectors. But they are almost all subjective–surveys, which measure the trusting-ness of the respondents in a way that can’t be teased apart from the trustworthiness of the subjects, and which are inevitably influenced by the latest scandals and news stories.

Then there are trust studies that look at objective behaviors and data–but they tend to be functionally narrow, e.g. accounting behavior, or CSR-related. Relevant, but not the whole picture of trust either.

What you have done is unique. You have taken a broad-based definition of trust (appropriate, because trust is a very broad theme), and identified objective behaviors with metrics to support them. The result is an objective, data-based broad definition of the trustworthiness of individual corporations.

If anyone wonders how you came up with a particular score for a particular company, you are able to say, “Here is exactly how we came up with that score.” And the dialogue that follows will perhaps do even more to help people explore trust than the ranking itself.

Congrats and thanks to you.