VettedCauses
Sorry if it came across like this post was intended to be feedback for you specifically—your post was just one of the most recent examples that came to mind of charity evaluation being done publicly. I have no idea if anything I’m saying here applies in the case of Sinergia.
No worries! The reason we thought you were saying this applies to Sinergia (and our review of them) is because your post says:
people have criticized charities for having publicly facing messages that don’t always align with what the critic thinks is right. This group Vetted Causes (example) is just one recent example of this sort of pattern.
Could you clarify what you meant when you said Vetted Causes is an example of this pattern?
If you think it is always unacceptable to provide false information to the public, even if that’s a part of an organization’s theory of change, I do disagree.
What we asked was if you think it is acceptable for Sinergia to provide the false information that they did about Alibem’s surgical castration practices. Could you please clarify this specific point before we move on to broader points?
Hello,
Thank you for your input regarding our Sinergia review.
I would just encourage people to wonder, before they criticize groups whose strategies they don’t understand, if they don’t really have the full picture.
We have criticized Sinergia for providing false information to the public. For example, here is some of the false information Sinergia provided related to Alibem:
On page 30 of Alibem’s 2023 Sustainability Report, Alibem states they will “Maintain immunocastration instead of surgical castration – a procedure that was voluntarily eliminated from the Company’s protocols in 2010.”
However, on page 20 of Sinergia’s Pigs in Focus 2023 Report, Sinergia indicates that in 2022 Alibem had not banned surgical castration, but in 2023 Alibem had banned surgical castration. Further, Sinergia took credit for getting Alibem to ban surgical castration “by 2023” (see Cell K4).
Even if providing this false information to the public leads to strategic advantages (such as more funding for Sinergia), we do not think it is acceptable; especially since this false information is being used to promote Sinergia and encourage donations. We are curious if you disagree.
Hi Dan, thank you for your reply.
Alegra’s rating in Pigs in Focus changed from one to three points between 2022 and 2023, so it seems at least plausible that Sinergia helped persuade them to end grinding.
Page 40-41 of Pig Watch 2024 indicates Alegra has not banned teeth grinding, and plans to follow Normative Instruction 113 (which allows teeth grinding in certain circumstances). Alegra is legally required to follow Normative Instruction 113.
Additionally, we noticed that you reference Sinergia’s Pigs in Focus quite a lot, and wanted to caution you that from what we’ve found, Pigs in Focus is not a reliable source.
For example, on page 30 of Alibem’s Sustainability Report, Alibem states they will “Maintain immunocastration instead of surgical castration – a procedure that was voluntarily eliminated from the Company’s protocols in 2010.”
However, on page 20 of Pigs in Focus 2023, Sinergia indicates that in 2022 Alibem had not banned surgical castration, but in 2023 Alibem had banned surgical castration. Further, Sinergia took credit for getting Alibem to ban surgical castration “by 2023” (see Cell K4).
Thank you for your feedback, Jason. We may do this in the future, but at this time believe it is best not to.
In the first review we published, ACE admitted to 4 of the problems we identified, and denied 2 of them. These 2 denials were based on the claim that ACE had hidden evaluation criteria that we did not consider in our analysis. ACE’s claim means:
ACE gave the public incorrect formulas for calculating Achievement Quality Scores, and by extension, Normalized Achievement Scores and Cost-Effectiveness Scores.
ACE chose to not reveal that these were the incorrect formulas until significant problems with their publicly disclosed formulas were raised.
Giving the public incorrect formulas isn’t just misleading, it’s making false claims. The formula for the circumference of a circle is C = 2 × π × r. If someone claims the formula is C = π × r, this is a false claim.
Additionally, the hidden evaluation criteria ACE has currently disclosed does not even fully address the 2 problems they denied. However, it is possible ACE has additional hidden evaluation criteria they could point to if anyone raised this issue. Unfortunately, there is no limit on how much alleged hidden information a charity could have, and it is impossible for us to determine if alleged hidden information is actually just fabricated evidence.During the 90 days between ACE’s response to our critique and our Sinergia Review, zero people (other than ourselves) made a comment or a post pointing out any of these issues with ACE’s response. Instead, ACE’s response was upvoted, and we were criticized on our Sinergia Review for not pre-disclosing our critiques with charities. We suspect the criticism was harsher because ACE denied 2 of the problems in our first review as described above.
We would like to avoid these issues coming up again should Sinergia/ACE decide to respond. Thus, at this time we believe it is best to not disclose every problem we are currently aware of. This way if Sinergia/ACE wants to dispute anything on the basis of hidden evaluation criteria, it will have to properly address all of the undisclosed problems we are aware of. This makes it less likely for the excuse of hidden evaluation criteria to work.
Thanks for your input David!
If it’s true[1] that some of their figures come from commitments they should have known do not exist and laws they should have known were already changed it would be absolutely fair to characterise those claims as “false”, even if it comes from honest confusion
We would like to clarify something. Sinergia wrote a 2023 report that states “teeth clipping is prohibited” under Normative Instruction 113/2020. Teeth clipping has been illegal in Brazil since February 1, 2021[1]. In spite of this, Sinergia took credit for alleged commitments leading to alleged transitions away from teeth clipping (see Row 12 for an example).
We prefer not to speculate about whether actions were intentional or not, so we didn’t include this in our report. We actually did not include most of our analysis or evidence in the review we published, since brevity is a top priority for us when we write reviews. The published review is only a small fraction of the problems we found.
- ^
See Article 38 Section 2 and Article 54 of Normative Instruction 113/2020.
- ^
Thank you for your response Johannes! We really appreciate it when people take the time to read our analysis, and question specific points. We encourage everyone to do the same.
I think there might be a misunderstanding in the analysis regarding the number of piglets and the slaughter figures. A 25% pre-slaughter mortality rate is quite common in pig farming.
We actually did account for pre-slaughter mortality rates in our analysis, but we used data specific to Brazil since that is where PPA is located. According to the study Swine Mortality and Productivity in Brazil – Benchmarks and Nutritional Solutions, the average pre-weaning mortality percentage is 8.91%, and the average growing-finishing mortality percentage is 3%.
This means it’s entirely possible that 1,000,000 piglets are born each year, and 25% (250,000) die before reaching slaughter age, leaving 750,000 to be slaughtered.
We acknowledge it is possible over 1,000,000 piglets could be teeth clipped each year at PPA. However, based on the available data, we think it is questionable (as we stated above).
Our main point in bringing up the slaughter numbers was to show that Sinergia’s estimate for the alleged commitment’s impact appears to rely on the assumption that without this commitment, PPA would have immediately started using teeth clipping on 100% of their piglets, but that with the commitment they will use teeth clipping on 0% of their piglets. This seems implausible given that PPA had already stated they don’t use teeth clipping prior to the alleged commitment, and teeth clipping was already illegal in Brazil prior to the alleged commitment.
We’d also like to note that there are cases where Sinergia’s estimates are likely more than 100% of the pigs that could be affected. In the JBS example we used in our article, Sinergia estimates that a commitment to not use gestation crates in new projects impacts 290,000 sows per year (see Cell L10). To justify this, Sinergia cites Alianima’s 2023 report, which states JBS has total 290,000 sows (see Cell P10). However, it seems very unlikely that JBS has 290,000 sows that are a part of new projects. We also checked the Alianima’s 2024 report, and it states JBS has 297,000 sows. This leads us to believe JBS is starting new projects at a much lower rate than Sinergia estimated.
With that being said, as we noted in our review, “the gestation crate policy that the alleged commitment references was already listed on JBS’s website in 2020, and has been in effect since that point.” In spite of this, Sinergia claims that JBS published a commitment for this in 2023 with a “Transition deadline” of 2023 (see Row 10).
We can provide other examples of estimates from Sinergia that we suspect are inflated if you’d like. The critique we published contains only a small fraction of our full analysis, because brevity is a top priority in our reviews.
Thanks for the insights, Jason.
If you’re relying on it to justify not giving a specific organization notice and an opportunity to prepare a response for concurrent publication, you can always say that
Could you clarify what you are saying we are relying on?
You can quibble that maybe charities should say “may” or “could” instead of “will”. Fine.
We appreciate that you seem to acknowledge that saying “may” or “could” would be more accurate than saying “will”, but we don’t see this as just a minor wording issue.
The key concern is donors being misled. It is not acceptable to use stronger wording to make impact sound certain when it isn’t.
If charities only spoke the way some people on the forum wish they would, they would get a fraction of the attention, a fraction of the donations, and be able to have a fraction of the impact.
Perhaps the donations would instead go to charities that make true claims.
Thanks for the feedback, Ben. This was the topic that most people were reaching out to us about, and we felt that many others likely had the same question. We would have done a comment, but we didn’t think it would have the same reach.
That said, we’ve now added a comment to our original post as you suggested. Do you have any advice on how to handle similar situations in the future?
Update: Several people have contacted us asking about our intentions regarding this review
To be clear, we release negative reviews not because we enjoy calling people out, but because we want problems to be fixed. Everyone makes mistakes, and most mistakes can be recovered from. If every charity shut down after they made a major mistake, there would be very few charities left.
We hope the charities we’ve reviewed address the problems we’ve detailed. In the future, we may review them again, and hope that we are able to recommend them for doing great work.
We acknowledge that we may have not gone about this in the best manner. Still, we hope all of the concerns we have raised are properly addressed.
I think a reasonable reader would view these statements as assertions grounded in a cost-effectiveness estimate, rather than as some sort of guarantee
If there are no advantages to making these statements factual claims, why didn’t Sinergia just state that they are estimates?
Thanks for the reply, Jason.
If Sinergia had framed their claims as estimates, we would agree with you.
However, Sinergia states that “every $1 you donate will spare 1,770 piglets from painful mutilations.” If someone donates $1 to Sinergia based on this claim and Sinergia does not spare an additional 1,770 piglets from painful mutilations, Sinergia has made a false claim to the donor, and it is fair to state this is the case.
The same applies to their claim that they help 113 million farmed animal every year.
Note: Sinergia could have avoided these issue by stating “we have estimates that state every $1 you donate will spare 1,770 piglets from painful mutilations” and “we have estimates that state we help 113 million farmed animals every year.” However, these statements are likely not as effective at convincing people to donate to Sinergia.
Thanks for the insights Jason, we completely agree.
We are curious if you would you also agree that it is (1) reasonable to assert “Charity X didn’t feed 10K meals to homeless individuals” and (2) unreasonable to give Charity X the benefit of the doubt, if:
“Charity X has not provided sufficient, publicly available evidence to substantiate its claim to have provided 10K meals to homeless individuals” and
There is publicly available and sufficient evidence indicating Charity X did not provide 10K meals to homeless individuals.
Hi Aidan, thank you for providing your input to the community.
I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the reality of most charities’ cost-effectiveness is less than they claim.
It appears we agree that Sinergia is making false claims about helping animals. ′
We are curious if you think this is proper grounds for not recommending them as a charity.
Thanks for your reply Jason—great to hear your perspective.
One problem is that your argument for importance also underscores how difficult and risky for an organization to “alter, fabricate, and/or destroy evidence” in the way you describe.
We understand it is risky, but could you clarify why it would be difficult for an organization to “alter, fabricate, and/or destroy evidence?” In many cases, wouldn’t it be as simple as changing values in a spreadsheet?
Thanks for clarifying, Neel, and for giving us the opportunity to clarify our statements. Quoting our original post:
It is not acceptable for charities to make public and important claims (such as claims intended to convince people to donate), but not provide sufficient and publicly stated evidence that justifies their important claims.
By “sufficient evidence” we did not mean proof eliminating all possible doubt. We meant evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person. For example, a reasonable person thinks there is sufficient evidence that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, but some people do not.
Additionally, we do not expect charities to provide sufficient evidence for all of their publicly stated claims, just their important ones. For instance, if a charity claims to have provided 10,000 meals to homeless individuals, they should provide sufficient evidence that this actually happened. However, if they announce that their end-of-year party was at Disneyland, no additional evidence is necessary.
Re your point about charities should be incentivised to provide sufficient public evidence. I think this is an extremely unreasonably high standard.
Hi Neel, thanks for the reply. Could you clarify what standard you’re referring to?
Thanks for the tool! It seems very useful.
they have a lot to lose as soon as it’s confirmed that the archived data is not manipulated.
We think our team still has some disagreements with you over how effective disinformation campaigns can be (especially when the disinformation is technical and the audience is mostly non-technical). That being said, we really appreciate your insights—you’ve made some great points.
Thank you for your reply and technical insights, Lorenzo.
To clarify, we are actually not that concerned about archived documents being manipulated. From what we understand, this is extremely rare.
What we are quite concerned about is that we will be falsely accused of manipulating archives, and the charity accusing us will be given the benefit of the doubt. They could cite articles like the one we cited earlier, and most people do not have the technical expertise to evaluate disputes over archive integrity.
Although Sinergia downplays this as a “minor mistake,” it results in Sinergia receiving credit for helping millions of JBS’s pigs who were not impacted (i.e. JBS pigs who have their ears notched from 2023 to 2026)..[1] This is not a “minor mistake.” Further, Sinergia claims that this mistake has been corrected, but all that was fixed was changing the phrase “by 2023” to “in 2023” in Cell K10.[2] The impact calculations were not fixed, and still incorrectly credit Sinergia for helping millions of JBS’s pigs who were not impacted.[1]
Sinergia/ACE (meaning Sinergia or ACE) also deleted evidence that suggests this was not a mistake/translation issue. Sinergia’s original spreadsheet contained a cell that included the following statement: “JBS published in 2023 the commitment to banning ear notching by 2023.” This was in Cell W10, but it was deleted right before Sinergia responded. [3]
If this was a mistake/translation issue, why did Sinergia know how to use “by” and “in” in Cell W10, but not in the Cell with the alleged mistake? Additionally, why did Sinergia/ACE delete Cell W10 right before you published your response, and not make any note stating Cell W10 was deleted? Column W is the only part of the spreadsheet that has been deleted, and all other changes in the spreadsheet have been explicitly noted in the spreadsheet.
Note: Cell R10 of the spreadsheet further suggests this was not a mistake/translation issue, as it states the “Transition deadline” for the JBS’s alleged ear notching commitment is 2023.
Pig Welfare Commitments Sinergia Allegedly Secured in 2023 - See Cells R10 Through Y10
Pig Welfare Commitments Sinergia Allegedly Secured in 2023 - See Row 10
Sinergia/ACE deleted Column W (which contained Cell W10) shortly before Sinergia published their response. We know that Column W had not been deleted as of 3/15/2025, as we took a screen recording of the spreadsheet on that date (skip to 1:39, notice Column W has not been deleted yet). We know that Column W had been deleted as of 3/20/2025 (the day before Sinergia published their response) since we downloaded the spreadsheet on that date. We also have a recording of Sinergia’s spreadsheet from 3/21/2025 where Column W has been deleted. Sinergia published their response on 3/21/2025.