Has your supply chain partner asked you to submit to EcoVadis, and you’re unsure how to best approach it? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a clear, comprehensive guide on what to expect from the disclosure process and the strategic value of your responses.
If so, you’re in the right place.
In this post, we will break down what to expect and ways to approach EcoVadis with confidence. With each EcoVadis questionnaire being unique, navigating self-reporting and identifying key areas of score improvement can be challenging.
First, let’s start with a comprehensive overview of EcoVadis.
Step-By-Step Overview
- Register your company
To start the process, your company must be registered with EcoVadis to receive a customized questionnaire and subscription plan. This part of the process does not take a long time to complete, and the company information you provide will be verified by experts at EcoVadis.
- Complete the questionnaire successfully.
This step of the process is often the most challenging to navigate. There are two essential key factors needed for this step: (1) providing strong supporting documentation and (2) fostering effective collaboration across departments. An important thing to keep in mind is that EcoVadis allows a maximum of 55 new documents to be uploaded for one assessment.
Don’t let this time-consuming and complex aspect of the submission overwhelm you. CEMAsys is here to support you. As we’ll outline later in this post, we have the necessary modules and expert consultants to ensure your responses and supporting policies align precisely with EcoVadis scoring expectations.
- EcoVadis’ turn to assess your completed questionnaire.
Once you submit your complete questionnaire to EcoVadis, their experts will assess your responses and supporting documentation. The average time it takes to process and publish results is around 6 to 8 weeks.
- You got your results. Now what?
Once you get an email notifying you your scorecard has been published, it will be available on the EcoVadis platform. These scorecards are valid for 12 months from the date of publication and can be shared outside of the platform if your company has specific EcoVadis subscriptions.
Need help understanding your score?
Once your results are in, it is normal to have questions and want more clarity on why you received the score you did. That’s where CEMAsys can come in. Our expert consultants can conduct in-depth gap assessments to pinpoint specific areas of improvement and tangible ways to improve scores.
How the EcoVadis Assessment Works
The process is accessible for a diverse range of global users, as EcoVadis offers its ratings process (which includes emails, registration, questionnaire, platform, and scorecard) in 10+ languages.
Additionally, each company’s assessment is unique based on the following factors: activity, size, and location of operations. Assessment pricing also varies on company size.
Depending on your unique questionnaire and whether it is your first time submitting the assessment, the entire submission process can take anywhere from days to weeks to complete. First time submissions typically take a lot of time, while returning companies often complete it more efficiently.
Assessment Structure: Themes, Pillars, Management Indicators, and Criteria
EcoVadis experts assess your sustainability practices and performance based on 4 key themes:
- Environment
- Ethics
- Labor & Human Rights
- Sustainable Procurement
EcoVadis evaluates these themes by focusing on 3 pillars: Policies, Actions, and Results. These pillars are broken down into 7 specific management indicators that EcoVadis uses to evaluate how well sustainability practices are implemented and documented at your company:
- Policies (POLI)
- Endorsements (ENDO)
- Measures (MESU)
- Certifications (CERT)
- Coverage – Deployment of Actions (COVE)
- Reporting (REPO)
- 360° Watch Findings (360)
Finally, EcoVadis analyzes 21 sustainability criteria across the 4 themes based on your company’s specific challenges and location:
Environment:
- Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gases
- Water
- Biodiversity
- Local and Accidental Pollution
- Materials, Chemicals, and Waste
- Product Use
- Product End-of-Life
- Customer Health and Safety
- Environmental Services and Advocacy
Labor & Human Rights:
- Employee Health and Safety
- Working Conditions
- Social Dialogue
- Career Management and Training
- Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking
- Diversity, Discrimination and Harassment
- External Stakeholder Human Rights
Ethics:
- Corruption
- Anticompetitive Practices
- Responsible Information Management
Sustainable Procurement:
- Supplier Environmental Practices
- Supplier Social Practices
All these components together form an evaluation framework that EcoVadis uses to provide companies with credible and actionable feedback on their sustainability management and impact.
What Do Your Results Look Like and What Do They Mean?
When you complete the EcoVadis assessment, your company will receive a score ranging from 0 to 100. This score will allow your company to break down and understand your sustainability performance both in absolute terms (baseline score) as well as relative to the peers in your industry (percentile ranking).
In addition to this score, EcoVadis provides a detailed scorecard with strength and improvement areas for each of the four themes. Each improvement area includes a suggested priority level to guide your company in potential corrective action.
To get a better understanding of what these results could look like, EcoVadis offers a sample scorecard on their website.
Medals Versus Badges
EcoVadis medals and badges are awarded to participating companies that have demonstrated a strong sustainability management system. While companies can receive either a medal or badge (not both), each award highlights meaningful progress towards sustainability. EcoVadis awards medals specifically to the top 35% performing companies across all companies and industries in EcoVadis’ database.
EcoVadis medals are awarded based on a company’s percentile rank compared to all rated companies over the past 12 months. The following are the types of medals awarded to companies:
- Platinum: top 1% of companies
- Gold: top 5% of companies
- Silver: top 15% of companies
- Bronze: top 35% of companies
There are also two types of EcoVadis badges which have the following specifications:
- Committed: minimum score of 45
- Fast Mover: score between 34 and 44 and improvement by at least 6 points compared to the company’s previous assessment within an 18-month period
Whether your company earns a medal or badge, both serve as credible proof of your sustainability efforts, enhancing trust with stakeholders and providing a clear foundation for improvement.
Why Is It Important to Report to EcoVadis?
Reporting to EcoVadis is beyond just meeting a requirement or request. It’s an opportunity for companies to create real value through innovation, growth, and impact.
- Strengthened Reputation and Stakeholder Trust
Participating in EcoVadis highlights your company’s commitment to transparent and responsible business practices to customers, partners, and investors. This alignment with key stakeholders is critical to becoming an accountable, responsible leader, opening up new business opportunities and innovations.
- Simplifying and Streamlining Data Management
Submitting to EcoVadis allows companies to easily benchmark and share key metrics as well as strive for continuous improvement from year to year. Companies can also efficiently navigate data requests from multiple partners through a single platform while having full control over access to data at any time.
- Gaining a Competitive Edge
Through EcoVadis, companies gain access to quantitative sustainability metrics and an internationally recognized scorecard. This boosts your company’s credibility, enabling you to confidently share progress and goals with key stakeholders. These are all essential aspects for your company to differentiate yourselves from industry peers.
How CEMAsys can guide you through confidently submitting your EcoVadis assessment
With support from our system solutions and expert consultants, we have the necessary resources needed to take your company’s EcoVadis submission to the next level, driving both innovation and impact.
CEMAsys leverages a variety of modules to track the precise KPIs needed for your company to reach your EcoVadis goals:
- Carbon accounting module: provides a clear picture of your company’s carbon footprint to manage greenhouse gas emissions.
- ESG metrics module: provides flexible and powerful data import tools and smart visualization to identify key ESG KPIs.
- Supply chain control module: provides oversight of supplier risk analysis and tracks key metrics to support goal setting and decision-making.
In addition to these powerful modules, our expert consultants are here to guide you every step of the way to your next EcoVadis submission, ensuring your company has the right policies in place and is fully prepared to submit a strong, well-supported assessment.
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