Independence
The Index is editorially independent. No organisation can pay for, influence, or suppress its ranking. Donors and partners do not have editorial input.
In Development
EOSYN Space Aerospace Equity & Accountability Index
The first public, evidence-based ranking of space agencies and aerospace companies on gender representation, environmental review practices, and community impact.
What the Index will do
The Index will rank space agencies and aerospace companies on three dimensions: gender representation in workforce and leadership, environmental review practices in supply chains and operations, and community impact of resource extraction and facility placement. Rankings will be public, evidence-based, and updated annually.
Why the Index is needed
The record already exists. Nobody has made it comparable.
This page previously carried four large percentages. They were removed, because we could not trace any of them to a citable, current, primary source. An organisation building a ranking of other people’s evidence standards does not get to hold itself to a lower one, and a number that flatters our own argument is exactly the number to check hardest. What follows is quoted verbatim from the primary document and re-verified against it every month.
“Mining, at all scales, large and small, has too often been linked with human rights abuses, environmental degradation and conflict.”
The supply chain under every satellite is linked to human rights abuse.UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, September 2024 (opens in a new tab, PDF) “Indigenous Peoples' lands and resources have been dispossessed and the lives of local peoples upended.”
The people who carry the cost are rarely the people who are consulted.UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, September 2024 (opens in a new tab, PDF) “Responsible companies, across the entire value chain, working to reform the sector continue to face an uneven playing field, with insufficient incentives for irresponsible actors to meet acceptable standards.”
Doing it properly is currently a competitive disadvantage. That is the gap an index closes.UN Secretary-General's Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals, September 2024 (opens in a new tab, PDF)
Why an absent document is the finding
Rare earth extraction — neodymium, dysprosium, terbium — underwrites every satellite, every reaction wheel, every ground station. Where no environmental review was filed before extraction began, there is no baseline measurement, so no way to prove contamination afterwards, so no liability, so no remediation. The missing document is not a formality; it is the mechanism. A ranking that scores review practices makes that gap visible and comparable across operators for the first time.
“Pipeline problem” is the most expensive phrase in aerospace HR. It moves responsibility to schools and away from the promotion committee.
What we will not do to make the case
We will not publish a workforce or leadership percentage until the Index measures it directly, with a named method and a right of reply. Until then the honest claim is narrower and still sufficient: representation is lost after entry, inside organisations, through promotion decisions made by people with names and job titles — and no agency currently publishes those decisions in a form anyone can compare.
Governance Framework
An organisation that holds others accountable must have its own accountability framework for the tool it uses to do so. The Index governance framework is published here from day one — before the first ranking exists.
Methodology transparency
The full methodology is published before the first ranking. Methodology changes are version-controlled and announced.
Conflict of Interest policy
EOSYN Space cannot rank itself or its commercial entity. Both are explicitly excluded from the Index. Partners are rankable. Partnership does not grant immunity from ranking.
Right of reply
Before publication, ranked organisations receive their draft ranking and have 14 days to provide factual corrections or responses. Responses are published alongside the ranking.
Data sources
All data sources are publicly cited. No anonymous sources for rankings.
Update cadence
Annual full ranking. Interim updates for material changes (e.g., a company found to have falsified environmental review data).
Correction policy
If a ranking is found to be inaccurate, a correction is published promptly with explanation. Corrections are never silent.
Funding disclosure
The cost of producing the Index is disclosed in the annual transparency report. Funding sources for the Index are disclosed.
Holding ourselves to it
We decline funding where a donor's core business conflicts with this page and they are unwilling to engage with it. We name every partner in the transparency report, including the awkward ones, and we state where a partner is mid-remediation rather than pretending the relationship is clean.
We also publish our own footprint: programme travel, hosting, and the carbon budget this website runs to. If we are going to audit an industry, our own numbers have to be on the table.