Comments
Sinergia's response:
Although the author thanks us for our feedback in the article, we do not agree that this was done accordingly.
Sinergia appreciates the transparency regarding the involvement with Vetted Causes for the research done to produce this article and is partially glad that a Portuguese speaker was later involved. However, we remain concerned that the author, not being Brazilian and seemingly failing to consult Brazilian experts, repetitively overlooked important local context and industry knowledge — as already explained in previous responses provided by Sinergia.
It has been a tiring experience to have to explain more than once that the cited normative instruction is not an enforced law in Brazil to see some changes later implemented in the text. At the final stages, we were requested to assist in identifying experts to check this text’s assumptions. This approach is unproductive and harms organizations aiming to work effectively. Moving forward, such processes must be conducted differently, with genuine respect for local expertise and proper consultation from the outset.
Regarding Alibem, Sinergia Animal and many other NGOs only consider a corporate policy valid once it becomes public, transparent, and verifiable. If Alibem had indeed adopted certain practices earlier, the formal and public commitment to them only occurred after Sinergia’s engagement through Pigs In Focus. A proof of this is that in 2022, Alibem didn’t report any public or permanent animal welfare policies during consultation for the publication of Pigs in Focus. Hidden or informal policies cannot be considered progress until they are publicly announced and open to scrutiny.
The article also neglects to recognize a well-established and effective advocacy tactic: publicly ranking companies. Such rankings foster competition among companies, encouraging them to avoid negative public perception and prompting the adoption of new welfare policies — often creating positive ripple effects across the industry. Initiatives such as Pigs in Focus have successfully demonstrated the effective impact of this approach. Securing new policies is not merely about sending campaign notices or running campaigns like the article suggests; a ranking in itself is a powerful pressure tactic that drives measurable change.
We also regret the disrespectful tone and sensationalism that have characterized most parts of this unethical process initiated by Vetted Causes. Fortunately, our long-term supporters — who are familiar with our rigorous programs and their tactics and have witnessed the tangible impact of our work for pigs in Brazil — have also followed this process closely and still trust our integrity and seriousness.
Sinergia is always open to accepting adjustments to our cost-effectiveness assessment if such revisions were conducted through ethical, professional, and contextually grounded analysis–instead of the approach adopted so far as described in the previous paragraph.
For these reasons, we have preferred and are likely to keep opting not to engage with all comments and posts on this forum if they involve sensationalism, unethical behavior and incomplete and unproductive methods of research. We are committed to focusing our time and energy on continuing our important work rather than fueling unprofessional and unbalanced debates.
(I'm not expressing an opinion in this comment on how significant I think the issues with the pig CEA are, but on how much updating on the desirability of deep-diving into other Singeria and non-Singeria CEAs is warranted after the reader makes that decision for themselves.)
I think the extent to which that is correct depends significantly on how the issues came to light. Vasco looked into aspects of Singeria's pig programs because of Adam's prior work on the subject. So the selection was not representative of CEAs, and requires caution in deciding how much to update on a random non-pig Singeria or non-Singeria CEA. For instance, I do not know whether Adam:
I would not find any of these approaches inappropriate per se for a third-party evaluator, although I would expect the evaluator to disclose the third approach if employed. But I do think they differ significantly as to how likely the pig CEA is to be representative of Singeria's CEAs, or a broader class of CEAs.
Thanks, Jason. @VettedCauses may want to comment on that. I would be surprised if they had looked into many CEAs from ACE in depth before publishing a review of Sinergia's. Based on my experience, I would say CEAs from basically all organisations besides GiveWell would benefit from more scrutiny. I often find myself concluding the cost-effectiveness should be updated by at least a factor of 2.