Editorial · January 26, 2026
How the editors assess Ethical Business Practice
Here is what our editors look at when they choose honorees. We use Digital Marketing Excellence as the worked example.
They use five criteria: Documented Public Benefit, Commercial Performance, Workforce & Community Impact, Governance & Ethics, and Innovation. No criterion carries a percentage weight, and no scoring panel is involved.
In this category the editors pay close attention to documented public benefit, since it is the hardest thing to fake. A company can buy a slicker slide deck in a week. It cannot go back and build workforce pipelines or civic benefit after the fact.
All of this comes from public information: what a business publishes about itself, its public listings and the public record. The editors write a qualitative note on each honoree.
Some categories end up empty. When the editors list no business in a category for a cycle, that slot stays open. No winner pays a fee for inclusion.