WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) has released Buying for Workplace Equality 2012, the popular annual guide to hundreds of American brands rated on businesses’ treatment of LGBT employees. The guide divides businesses and their consumer products into red, yellow and green categories based on their score on HRC Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a nationally recognized benchmark of LGBT inclusion.
Companies’ updated scores in this year’s guide reflect the new, more stringent criteria standards that went into effect with the 2012 CEI, from which HRCF derive these ratings.
This year, the LGBT community’s buying power is estimated at nearly $800 billion, according to research by Witeck-Combs Communications and Marketresearch.com. The research also shows the LGBT community is both savvy about companies’ inclusive policies and fiercely loyal to those companies who support LGBT workplace equality.
