Our Story
As You Know was founded on a simple conviction – that the most important sustainability data in the world shouldn’t be locked away in disconnected research silos.
We built the platform to bring it together.
Our mission
We built the infrastructure that sustainability data has always needed
For more than 30 years, nonprofit researchers and advocates have produced some of the most rigorous, issue-specific sustainability research in the world. But it lived in silos — scattered across organizations, inaccessible to most investors and researchers.
As You Know was built to change that. We license and aggregate independent sustainability datasets — covering racial justice, climate, human rights, economic harm, and more — and deliver them through a single platform built for institutional-grade analysis.
This isn't data scraped from corporate disclosures. It's human-curated, methodologically transparent research — developed by the organizations closest to the issues.
We believe the future of sustainable investing depends on data that corporations can't write themselves. Independent research, rigorously applied, is the only foundation that holds.
— As You Know founding principleWhy disclosure is really about trust
Transparency is not a compliance exercise. It's how trust is built.
Research on human relationships shows that disclosure builds trust. When people share information about themselves — even information that reveals imperfections — they are perceived as more authentic, trustworthy, and relatable. Transparency signals confidence. It tells others: "We have nothing to hide."
The same dynamic applies to companies. Investors, employees, customers, and regulators are increasingly asked to make decisions with incomplete information. When a company voluntarily discloses its environmental, social, and governance performance, it reduces uncertainty and demonstrates accountability. Disclosure allows stakeholders to understand not only where a company excels, but also where it faces challenges — and how it plans to improve.
Counterintuitively, perfect scores are not what build trust.
Honest disclosure does.
A company that transparently reports its workforce diversity gaps, emissions challenges, supply-chain risks, or governance weaknesses often earns greater credibility than one that reports only successes — or provides little information at all.
Disclosure transforms sustainability from a marketing claim into evidence. It enables comparison, measurement, and informed decision-making. It creates the foundation for engagement between companies and investors, just as self-disclosure creates the foundation for trust between people.
The most trusted companies are often not those with perfect sustainability performance — but those willing to openly share where they stand, where they are falling short, and how they intend to improve.
A perspective from the As You Know team
Where we started
From idea to institutional platform
Incorporated as a California benefit corporation
As You Know was founded to license and distribute As You Sow's proprietary corporate sustainability data — bringing decades of nonprofit research to institutional investors for the first time.
RJ/Workforce Equity dataset launched
Platform development began. First institutional client signed — validating the revenue-share licensing model and demonstrating real demand from asset managers for independent sustainability data.
Expanded beyond founding dataset
First full year of license and revenue-share payments received. Expanded to independent providers: Adasina Social Capital Hub (4 contributing organizations), Prime Directive Analytics, and Signal Climate Analytics.
Invest Your Values licensing added
Commercial infrastructure scaled. Growing institutional client base across asset managers and RIAs. 200+ institutional targets identified. Invest Your Values data now licensed exclusively through As You Know.
Scaling toward the institutional market
New strategic partnerships in progress across the U.S. and Europe. Building toward the next phase of growth.
Why it matters
The market needs data that corporations can't write
Most ESG data providers rely primarily on corporate self-disclosure — companies reporting on themselves. As You Know is built on a fundamentally different premise: independent research, issue-specific methodology, and human curation.
Our data providers are nonprofit researchers and independent analysts — not aggregators of corporate PR.
Each dataset covers a specific issue — racial justice, methane intensity, political influence — with methodology investors can audit.
The underlying research base spans three decades of nonprofit advocacy, shareholder engagement, and corporate accountability work.
Our research network
Built with the organizations closest to the issues
We partner with leading nonprofit and commercial research organizations whose work forms the backbone of our platform.
Join us in building what's next
We're scaling toward the institutional market — and looking for partners, clients, and investors who share our conviction that independent data changes outcomes.
