I think the problem of entities lying about what they’re doing (especially in low trust regions) is wider than just corporate campaigns. Ultimately charities have to make some sort of decision on how and if to audit whether the outcomes they’re expecting are the ones they’re getting.
Asking whether Sinergia had any way to evaluate whether companies were complying (before or after their intervention) is I think the main reason that it would have been good for VettedCauses to share their initial findings before publication. Sinergia appear to have Brazilian staff focused on this specific issue so they shouldn’t have been ignorant of the relevant law, but it’s possible they intentionally targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant (this is the whole theory of change behind Legal Impact for Chickens) and had some success. It is also possible they targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant and simply believed what the companies said in response. It is also possible there are loopholes and exemptions in the law. But I’d still have to agree that taking 70% of the credit for campaigning against something already made illegal is a bold claim, and some of the other claims Sinergia made don’t seem justifiable either.
Hi David, thank you for taking the time to read our article. You make some interesting points.
In terms of the work Sinergia did to claim credit for helping millions of pigs, it is listed in Column W of this spreadsheet.
For example, in Cell W5: “After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, Aurora published in 2023 the commitment to banning surgical castration in pigs. Alianima engaged positively with the company.”
Most of the descriptions are quite similar to this. Note that “Pigs in Focus” is an annual report that Sinergia began publishing in 2022.
I think the problem of entities lying about what they’re doing (especially in low trust regions) is wider than just corporate campaigns. Ultimately charities have to make some sort of decision on how and if to audit whether the outcomes they’re expecting are the ones they’re getting.
Asking whether Sinergia had any way to evaluate whether companies were complying (before or after their intervention) is I think the main reason that it would have been good for VettedCauses to share their initial findings before publication. Sinergia appear to have Brazilian staff focused on this specific issue so they shouldn’t have been ignorant of the relevant law, but it’s possible they intentionally targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant (this is the whole theory of change behind Legal Impact for Chickens) and had some success. It is also possible they targeted companies they suspected were noncompliant and simply believed what the companies said in response. It is also possible there are loopholes and exemptions in the law. But I’d still have to agree that taking 70% of the credit for campaigning against something already made illegal is a bold claim, and some of the other claims Sinergia made don’t seem justifiable either.
Hi David, thank you for taking the time to read our article. You make some interesting points.
In terms of the work Sinergia did to claim credit for helping millions of pigs, it is listed in Column W of this spreadsheet.
For example, in Cell W5: “After the impacts of Pigs in Focus rank 1st edition and dozen of meetings, Aurora published in 2023 the commitment to banning surgical castration in pigs. Alianima engaged positively with the company.”
Most of the descriptions are quite similar to this. Note that “Pigs in Focus” is an annual report that Sinergia began publishing in 2022.