We audited the consistency of the published figures across the whole site and corrected two things. (1) Nine organisations (Du Anyam, Messy Bessy, Rural Rising, Local Alike, STEPS, Sapa O'Chau, Fargreen, Langit Collective, Friends International) displayed an assessment quarter of 2026-Q2 when the correct quarter was 2026-Q3. The field was blank in the source data and a default value was being shown. We filled in 105 blank entries (9 of them on currently published pages) using the quarter recorded for the organisations registered on the same day. (2) The figures on the About page - the number of organisations on hold or of low certainty, the proportion of detail rows carrying a source URL, and the counts of change log entries and corrections - had not been updated after the most recent changes. They now reflect the current data, and the page counts on the same basis as the home page statistics: organisations shown in the directory.
We consolidated our pre-publication checks into two automated scripts. One checks the consistency of organisation counts - comparing the source data, the generated pages, the home page statistics and breakdown tables, the structured data, llms.txt, the sitemap and the figures on the About page, all counted on the same basis. The other is a pre-publication self-check covering structured data, canonical links, hreflang, internal links, Japanese-English parity and any Japanese text left on English pages. Nothing is published while either reports a problem. The definitions we count by - organisations with a published page, as distinct from organisations shown in the directory - are now written into our working procedure.
We have added 10 organisations, completing our review of the 101 candidates drawn up for the fourth quarter of 2026. This group covers water, housing, disaster resilience and law from North America (Water.org, Habitat for Humanity International, Build Change, Namati); paediatric cardiac care, investment in social enterprises and arid-land agriculture from the Middle East (Save a Child's Heart, Alfanar, Sahara Forest Project); vocational training and support for survivors of violence from the Pacific (Vanuatu Skills Partnership, Femili PNG); and mountain-village handicraft from South-East Asia (Ma Te Sai). Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Laos, Jordan and Israel appear for the first time. One candidate, the Solomon Islands Women in Business Association, was not listed this time: no official website could be confirmed and independent material on membership and results is thin. Of the 101 candidates, 99 are now listed and 2 were set aside.
We have added 29 organisations in both Japanese and English. From Europe: member-funded investigative journalism, a citizen-built food database, food waste, small-scale finance in Central Asia and the Caucasus, animal sanctuaries and humanitarian aid (Follow the Money, Open Food Facts, Boroume, KMF, Kompanion Bank, Crystal, FOUR PAWS, Polish Humanitarian Action, Ocalenie Foundation). From South Asia: housing and climate adaptation, employment for disabled people, handloom, anti-trafficking, solar power, safe water, finance for women, cancer care and mountain agriculture (Mahila Housing Trust, Vindhya E-Infomedia, Selyn, Maiti Nepal, Grameen Shakti, Drinkwell, Kashf Foundation, Shaukat Khanum, Mountain Hazelnuts). From Latin America and the Caribbean: forest conservation, agriculture, employment for deaf people, coral reef restoration, finance for young entrepreneurs, investigative journalism, highland harvesting and water (FUNDECOR, SiembraViva, Deaf Can! Coffee, Coral Vita, Banco Perola, Agencia Publica, Inka Moss, Yaqua). From Africa: farming information by voice, wildlife conservation and reforestation (Jokalante, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Bondy). Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Greece, Nepal, Bhutan, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Namibia, Madagascar, Senegal and Costa Rica are among the countries appearing for the first time. One candidate, Kubo Financiero (Mexico), was not listed this time: reporting describes deteriorating credit quality and customer complaints about being unable to withdraw funds.
As the regular quarterly review for the fourth quarter of 2026, we checked the 106 organizations that had come due. We first tested every one of the 106 official sites for signs of trouble - unreachable, redirecting to another domain, or replaced by unrelated content - and then looked individually at those that showed something, together with every organization on hold, of low certainty, at C or below, or with a status other than active. The changes found were as follows. Goterra (Australia) found no buyer after entering voluntary administration in June 2026 and moved into liquidation in July, so its status is now "in liquidation" and it has been removed from the directory (the page is kept as a record). Northvolt (Sweden): Lyten completed its acquisition of the Swedish operations in February 2026 and a restart is in preparation. Stegra (Sweden) completed a EUR 1.4 billion raise in June 2026 covering the cost of completing construction, but the start of operations is under review. For Climeworks (Switzerland) we added to the watching section the independent finding that the Mammoth plant had issued 383 tonnes of certified credits in total as of January 2026, against a nameplate of 36,000 tonnes a year. We also updated three official URLs that had moved (APAC/FBAC Brazil, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, TriCiclos) and confirmed that two problems noted at the previous review - liwwa returning a connection error and Échale displaying abnormally - have been resolved. The remaining organizations have had their assessment quarter moved to 2026-Q4, with the next review dates spread across four quarters.
We have added an "About this project" page in both languages (/about). Until now the only statement about who runs the site was a single line in the privacy policy. The page sets out: (1) six promises; (2) that the site is run by an individual based in Japan whose name is not published, why that is, and that anonymity here means the name is not published - statutory requests are answered within the limits of the law; (3) money - no advertising, sponsorship, listing fees or affiliate commission is received, there is no financial relationship with any organization assessed, costs are paid by the operator, and if costs or revenue arise in future it will be written here and in the change log before that happens; (4) the division of work between AI and a person - the AI generates against published criteria, and before publication the operator checks that sources exist, that confirmed negatives are not confused with ongoing disputes, that no invented anecdote has crept in, and that wording is not overstated; (5) how to verify all of it - the criteria shown permanently, the shareable prompt, the proportion of detail rows carrying a source URL, the assessment quarter and last-checked date, the change log, and the retention of past snapshots; (6) the corrections procedure, with the 7 corrections and 3 withdrawals recorded so far. The privacy policy's description of the operator was changed from "operated anonymously" to "the operator's name is not published", and links to the page were added across the site.
Following an external review we fixed three things. (1) On organization pages, the line in the "positive effects" section that read "independently verified + will be added over time" has been replaced with a statement of the actual position - that the positive side of the assessment rests on the single story (N1) and its source, that a per-item ledger has not yet been compiled - together with the nature of that source. The point is that a reader can see where the weight of evidence sits, even on an A. (2) The breakdown tables now note why the theme totals exceed the number of organizations listed: one organization can belong to several themes. (3) In the English edition, 268 instances of mixed British and American spelling were standardized to American - across organization page text, watching items and the English text of this change log - and four full-width characters in organization names were corrected. Text inside direct quotations, and the titles of cited documents, were left as published. (4) Full-width punctuation left on English pages - parentheses, commas, periods, slashes, Japanese quotation marks and ideographic spaces - was converted to its ASCII form, around 350 instances, mostly in source lines. A stray Japanese period on the English privacy page and the divider in the English prompt were also fixed. The vertical bar used to separate source fields is a shared design element in both languages and was left as it is.
We added two things for AI and search referencing. (1) Published /llms.txt. It states what A-G mean, the non-netting rule (positive effects never cancel negative ones), that scale is not an assessment criterion, the ordering of source types, that only high-level confirmed negatives move a letter, our request that the assessment quarter and the certainty be quoted alongside the letter, and the current limitation that a per-item ledger of positive effects has not been compiled for every organization. (2) The Japanese and English home pages now embed the list of organizations as machine-readable structured data (ItemList). Individual organization pages continue to carry Organization, Article and BreadcrumbList.
We have added 30 organizations in both Japanese and English. From Europe they are co-operatives, social enterprises and non-profit journalism (Som Energia, La Fageda, AUARA, Libera Terra, EMERGENCY, Alce Nero, Zotter, Vollpension, Carbfix, Too Good To Go, OLIO, Winnow, People in Need, Concern Worldwide, GOAL, Corticeira Amorim, Associacao Salvador, CORRECTIV, auticon, Blue Ventures); from Africa they work in agriculture, health, energy and legal support (myAgro, Good Nature Agro, AgroCenta, GiftedMom, ALTECH, Jibu, BarefootLaw, Harambee, Daily Maverick), alongside MASS Design Group, which designs health facilities across Africa. Seven countries appear for the first time: Iceland, Ireland, Austria, Cameroon, Zambia, the Czech Republic and Portugal.
We have added 30 organizations in both Japanese and English. They fill two areas we had covered thinly - technology and infrastructure (OpenStreetMap Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, Signal, Tor, Mozilla, Internet Society, MOSIP, BRCK, Mawingu, Gozem, Code for Japan, Needs Map, Close the Gap, Vera Solutions, Simprints, Medic, Dimagi) and education (Mary's Meals, The Citizens Foundation, StoryWeaver, Ubongo, Kidogo, Ashesi University, Educate!, Luminos Fund, Educate Me, Edraak) - along with Edhi Foundation, Akhuwat and Sarvodaya from South Asia. Nine countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Togo, appear for the first time.
On phones, the filter bar on the home page took up too much space, so we tidied it up. Theme and letter options are now collapsed, with the current selection shown in the heading, and the region and listing menus sit side by side. The desktop layout is unchanged.
When you choose a theme on the home page, matching organization tiles now take on that theme's color and name. Organisations spanning several themes previously kept the color of their main theme, which made it look as if other themes were mixed in.
Fixed a bug on the home page where choosing a theme, letter, region or other filter did not narrow the directory. The count updated correctly, but non-matching organizations stayed on screen.
The three quotations and the "This is a mirror, not a ranking" statement on the home page now appear as cards within the organization directory. Like the organizations, they change position each time you open the page or press Shuffle.
We checked official website addresses and updated the links for nine organizations whose sites had moved or been renamed: Kingo, Messy Bessy, KarmSolar, Vivenda, Canyou Group, Free Lunch for Children, Insite, Iluméxico and AIWORKX (formerly Testworks). For three organizations whose official websites can no longer be found (Fargreen, Langit Collective and Green Monday), we have removed the official site link.
We have withdrawn three organizations from the directory: Algramo, Banco Palmas and Runa. The official website addresses we had on record now lead to sites unrelated to these organizations. We will consider listing them again once their current official websites can be confirmed.
Organisation pages now have a Careers button next to the Official site button. It links only to a careers page we could confirm on the organization's own website. It is not shown where no such page was found, or for organizations that have closed, been liquidated or been acquired.
The colors and tone of the home page now extend to every page, including organization pages, the FAQ, the change log and the contact form. On organization pages, the letter panel shows the same theme color and theme name as the home page directory. Assessments are unchanged.
We have redesigned the home page. Organisations are now shown as a directory coloured by theme, which you can filter by keyword, region, theme, letter and listing status. The page also features an organization of the day, and the typefaces across the site have been updated for readability. Organisation page URLs and assessments are unchanged.
Added six organizations (balancing regions and themes): SOIL (Haiti, sanitation), Buurtzorg (Netherlands, home care), ShelterBox (UK, emergency shelter), AÇEV (Türkiye, early childhood education), TEMA (Türkiye, reforestation) and The Fred Hollows Foundation (Australia, eye health).
Each organization page now shows its assessment history quarter by quarter in the History strip. Previously only the latest quarter appeared; in line with our policy of keeping past snapshots, you can now see at a glance how a view has changed over time.
Organisations confirmed to have ceased operations, been liquidated or dissolved are now removed from the directory and marked as archived. Their pages remain as a record and state their status plainly. This currently applies to Komaza (ceased operations), Eat My Lunch (liquidated) and marymond (dissolved).
For the Q3 2026 review cycle we re-verified all 140 organizations that were due, using public sources. Their assessment date is now Q3 2026, and for 42 organizations we added the latest facts - funding, leadership and governance changes, updated results - to the main text.
We corrected three material changes found during re-verification. Komaza (Kenya) entered receivership and has ceased operations; Oolu Solar (Senegal) was acquired by Ignite Energy Access in 2024 and is no longer independent; and Eat My Lunch (New Zealand) was liquidated in December 2022. Status and main text have been corrected for all three.
Added small icon links to our X account (@narrativevalue) and note in the footer of every page.
Redirects from legacy URLs (with .html) to current URLs (extensionless) are now permanent (301) instead of temporary (307), helping search engines recognize each page's canonical URL faster and more reliably. We also excluded the internal contact API (/api/) from search-engine crawling.
We added 10 more listed companies, including themes we had covered less: education, water treatment and circularity (metal / e-waste / hazardous waste / packaging): Vestas (Denmark, wind), NIBE (Sweden, heat pumps), Befesa (Luxembourg, hazardous-waste recycling), Duolingo (US, free language learning), Nubank (Brazil, financial inclusion), Kurita Water Industries (Japan, water treatment), ReNew (India, renewables), Mercury NZ (NZ, 100% renewable), Sims Limited (Australia, metal & e-waste recycling) and SIG Group (Switzerland, cartons) (Japanese and English).
We added 15 more listed companies, balancing regions (Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, North America, Oceania, East/Southeast Asia) and themes (financial inclusion, medicine access, nutrition, efficient lighting, wood & renewable materials, HVAC decarbonization, circular economy incl. waste-to-value and reuse, rare disease, respiratory care, diagnostics, hygiene & elder care, sustainable finance): Credicorp (Yape), Jamjoom Pharma, Grupo Nutresa, Signify, dsm-firmenich, Sonova, Stora Enso, Trane Technologies, Darling Ingredients, CSL, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Brambles, Sysmex, Unicharm and DBS (Japanese and English).
We added 4 more listed companies (filling regions/themes): Biocon (India, affordable insulin & biosimilars), Tabreed (UAE, energy-efficient district cooling), Airtel Africa (Africa, mobile money & connectivity) and Serena Energia (Brazil, 100% renewable power) (Japanese and English).
We added 20 more listed companies, balancing regions (South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia) and themes (medicines, cancer care, chronic care, water & hygiene, sustainable materials & forestry, energy efficiency, housing, education, nutrition, financial inclusion): Dr. Reddy's, ACWA Power, Fawry, Vodacom, Clicks, WEG, Klabin, Bancolombia, Schneider Electric, Elekta, UPM, Coloplast, Interface, Ecolab, BRI, Vinamilk, FPT, OMRON, Sekisui House and Grupo Bimbo (Japanese and English).
We added 10 more listed companies, filling thin regions (South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia) and newer themes such as water, diagnostics, hearing, biosolutions, neglected tropical diseases and school meals: Vaibhav Global, MercadoLibre, ENGIE Brasil, Xylem, Integrated Diagnostics, Cochlear, Novonesis, Halma, ACEN and Eisai (Japanese and English).
We added 10 listed companies, chosen to balance previously thin regions (South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania) and themes such as access to medicines, financial inclusion, renewable energy and the circular economy: Cipla, Hikma, Safaricom, Equity Group, Australian Ethical, Meridian Energy, Ørsted, TOMRA, First Solar and Delta Electronics (Japanese and English).
When accessed via the 'www' hostname (www.narrativevalue.org), the site now redirects (301) to the canonical non-www address (narrativevalue.org). Nothing visible to readers changes (this consolidates URLs for search engines).
For search engines, we aligned internal links, canonical URLs and the sitemap to the address the server actually serves (without the trailing .html). Previously the declared canonical used .html while the server redirected .html to the extensionless URL — a mismatch Google treated as duplicate/redirect. Nothing visible to readers changed.
We fixed the links on the organization cards on the English home page. Previously clicking an English card opened the Japanese page; it now correctly opens the English page.
We fixed a display bug in the 'Watching' section on the English pages. On some pages (196), the watch items were being shown as one bullet per character; they now render correctly as one bullet per item. The content itself is unchanged and matches the Japanese pages.
We improved internal settings for search engines. We added canonical-URL and language (hreflang) tags to the top pages (Japanese and English) so the same content is not treated as duplicated across multiple URLs. Nothing visible to readers changed.
We added a 'Frequently asked questions (FAQ)' page (Japanese and English). It explains, using familiar terms, how Narrative Value differs from and complements existing metric databases for ESG, intangible assets, human capital and social impact. It includes structured data (FAQ) so search engines and AI can understand the content more easily. It is linked from the top of every page and from the policy pages.
We reviewed our terminology. (1) We unified the word for the framing an organization presents about itself from 'story' to 'narrative' (a single lived account — the N1 — is still called a 'story'). (2) In keeping with this being a mirror, not a ranking, we replaced the Japanese word for 'assessment' (評価) with gentler terms — 'a reading' (見立て) or 'current position' (現在地) — depending on context. The letter name 'Narrative Value' and 'On hold' are unchanged. On the English pages we unified the framing word from 'story' to 'narrative' and kept 'assessment.'
To match the site's concept name, we unified the phrase 'value money cannot measure,' which remained in a few places, to 'value beyond numbers' (the meaning is unchanged; this is a more accurate wording).
We have finished preparing an English version for every published organization page. Every organization readable in Japanese is now also readable in English (366 English pages, matching the Japanese pages one-to-one). You can switch between them from the language toggle at the top right of each page.
For readability, we removed the explicit words 'before' and 'after' that had been written into the 'single story (N1)' and analysis text on organization pages. The change is now conveyed naturally by context; the content is unchanged (Japanese and English).
We unpublished the pages of six organizations (BYJU'S, eFishery, Gawad Kalinga, Sama, Papa, San Patrignano); they no longer appear on the site (the assessment data is retained internally).
We unpublished the Oxfam GB page, and it no longer appears on the site (the assessment data is retained internally).
In line with the assessment's basic principle (the mainline narrative and the single story (N1) describe positive effects, while negatives, distance and watch items belong in separate fields), we tidied some organization pages so that mentions of negatives, watch items and caveats that had crept into the mainline narrative or N1 are moved to their proper 'Questioning,' 'Watching' and 'ceiling' fields. The content itself is preserved; only its placement was corrected (30 organizations; Japanese and English).
As an overall finish, we unified notation and fixed display issues: translated Japanese that remained on English pages (country, region, category and letter labels, etc.), unified region categories, removed internal notes that had slipped into the listing cards' descriptions, adjusted the display of aggregated sources that have no single URL, and finalized the dates on the Disclaimer and Privacy Policy. The assessment texts themselves were not changed.
To expand coverage, we added Japanese pages for 168 candidate organizations (373 organizations total). Each organization's content was reviewed recently (June–July 2026). English pages will be added progressively.
To make this change log easier to read, we added category filtering (six types: feature added / removed / changed, and organization added / removed / updated). Click a chip at the top to show only that type of change.
To improve transparency, we created this Change Log page (Japanese/English). From now on, additions, edits and deletions are recorded here with the date, type, reason, target and section.
On the home page, the free-word search box was hidden behind the fixed top bar when scrolling, so we fixed it: the search box and filters now stay just below the fixed bar and remain visible (home; Japanese/English).
For consistency of region categories, we consolidated groupings that were uneven as geographic divisions. 'Other Asia' (Korea and others) and 'Greater China' (Taiwan) were merged into 'East & Southeast Asia,' and a standalone 'India' entry was merged into 'South Asia' (region labels on every page and the region filter on the home page).
To expand coverage, we added Japanese/English pages for 10 candidate organizations (Duofu, WIRobotics, Testworks, Dot Incorporation, Better Milk, Donggubat, OurCityLove, Todoworks, PackAge+, Doson Company) (205 organizations total). Before adding, we checked each one's current status (leadership, continuity, policy changes).
Also to expand coverage, we added Japanese/English pages for 10 candidate organizations (AmaliTech, Banqer, Bear Better, Brighte, Exuus, GoodDot, Hireup, Mamotest, Stellapps, Tree Planet) (195 organizations total).
Some English pages still showed Korean text (e.g. academic author names) in the sources section, so we added processing that automatically removes annotations containing Korean (sources display on English pages).
To keep information current, we re-checked the leadership and status of 32 Japanese organizations and updated five (Japanese/English): JOGGO (current president Masayuki Ota), Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten (14th-generation head Aya Sengoku), Spiber (added its late-2025 funding difficulty, 2026 private restructuring and business transfer to CRANE; placed on watch), Smiles (2023 president Wataru Nozaki), Grameen Nippon (2025 chair Kimihiro Momono).
To improve navigation, we changed the header on organization pages and the home page into a fixed 'NARRATIVE VALUE' bar that stays in place while scrolling (it shows the current location, page title, a Japanese/English switch and a disclaimer note; clicking the logo returns to the home page).
So that the disclaimer can be read on its own, we created a standalone Disclaimer page (Japanese/English) and fixed links to it from various places.
For readability of English pages, we translated and tidied Japanese that remained in the sources section using a glossary, omitting anything untranslatable. We also shortened the bilingual summary (direct-answer) block to reduce overlap with the main text, and changed long source URLs to a 🔗 icon.
For source traceability, we identified and filled in missing source URLs through web research (including placeholders that read 'confirm and enter the source URL').
For readability by AI systems, we added an HTML fallback list of all organizations on the home page (a list that remains readable even with JavaScript disabled).
To expand coverage, we added 50 candidate organizations (from 135 to 185 organizations; published in Japanese/English after checking each one's current status).
To accept corrections and rebuttals, we brought the contact form into production (submissions are notified to the operator; your text is never published).
We acquired and connected the custom domain narrativevalue.org and published the site (on Cloudflare).