Investigate is a database of companies with demonstrated links to Israeli military occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, or other grave human rights violations. It does not include all Israeli companies, all companies doing business in Israel, or companies supporting Israel in other ways.
Adding Companies to Investigate
Whenever possible and appropriate, we add companies to Investigate based on research that was already published by other reputable organizations. Our team independently verifies the information for accuracy and augments it with additional findings from our own research. Our leading secondary sources include:
- Who Profits - an independent Israeli research center that since 2007 has been researching and documenting companies involved in Israel's illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory and Syrian Golan.
- The UN Database of companies involved in Israel's illegal settlement enterprise.
- Other publications by UN agencies, experts, and bodies.
- Reports and other publications by reputable human rights organizations.
We conduct our own research to add new companies based on research gaps and movement needs. Our primary sources include:
- Companies' financial reports, websites, and other publications.
- Government records and databases.
- Media and academic reports.
- Industry publications, conferences, and expos.
- Open sources such as social media posts.
- Field research on site.
When adding companies to the Investigate, we prioritize companies with exposure to the public outside of Israel. For example, we prioritize companies that are publicly traded, or that have significant business operations outside of Israel, over privately-owned Israeli companies. For a more comprehensive list of companies involved in the Israeli occupation, including small Israeli companies, refer to Who Profits database.
Adding Companies to the Divestment Shortlist
The Investigate database is two-tiered. From our general list of companies of concern, some are included in the divestment shortlist. This determination is based on three criteria: the salience of the human rights violation, the company's culpability in the violation, and the company's resistance to change.
Each of these is evaluated on a 1-5 point scale, from least to most severe, leading to an overall score of 3-15 points for each company. We evaluate each business activity separately, and the highest score becomes the company's final score. Companies that receive more than 10 become part of the divestment shortlist.
Salience - the severity of the human rights violation and how harmful it is. Based on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights Reporting Framework, it measures the severity of the negative impact of a company’s activities and/or business relationships. Salience does not measure the company’s proximity to violation, nor its impact on the company’s revenue. It measures only the degree to which this violation is harmful to people. Salience is also adjusted by measuring the scale and scope of the violence.
- Symbolic: Discrimination
- Structural: Exploitation or sporadic indirect violence
- Indirect: Large-scale systemic indirect physical violence or sporadic direct violence
- Direct: Systemic direct physical violence
- Severe: Large scale and severe direct physical violence
Culpability - the degree of the company’s involvement in the human rights violation. It is assessed on a case by case basis and includes both the degree to which the company’s products and services contribute to the violation and the degree to which the company is knowingly and intentionally linked to the violation. For example, supplying custom-made crucial equipment or services would make the company more culpable than if it was unknowingly selling an off-the-shelf product that is being misused.
- Normalize: The company’s relationships link to the violation.
- Capitalize: The company’s activities, services, or products link to the violation.
- Support: The company’s activities, services, or products exacerbate or contribute to the violation, or deliberately support it.
- Facilitate: The company knowingly and intentionally provides products, activities, or services which exacerbate or enable the violation.
- Enforce: The company’s activities cause the violation.
Resistance - the degree of the company’s responsiveness or lack thereof to multi-stakeholder engagement. This is assessed by monitoring the company’s statements, attempts at dialogue and remediation, changes in corporate policies or activities, etc.
- Responsive: The company announced it would fully withdraw from the violation.
- Responding: The company is changing its behavior, but not enough.
- Dialogue: There is a dialogue or possibility of a dialogue with the company about this violation, with potential for improvement.
- Nonresponsive: The company is unlikely to respond to stakeholders’ concerns.
- Resistant: The company has not responded to public stakeholders’ concerns regarding the violation.