Mastering EcoVadis: 5 Steps to a Successful Rating

Sustainable value chains are a crucial aspect of doing business in the modern world. Improving the environmental and social impact of products is no longer “nice to have,” but a (legal) requirement. Evidence of compliance with ethical and sustainability standards is becoming an expectation from business customers.

Many companies use sustainability assessments from third-party providers (e.g., EcoVadis, SEDEX) to request information, reports and ratings from their suppliers through a standardized process. One of the most widely used and accepted providers is EcoVadis, a company which yearly assesses over 100,000 companies across the globe.

The challenge of being a supplier within the network of multiple brands and enterprises is the intense workload which comes with answering sustainability assessments such as EcoVadis. In addition to other reporting requests you might receive as a supplier, you are inundated with long questionnaires, to which your current and future partners want you to respond. Even with a designated sustainability task force, processing all EcoVadis questions can be very time consuming, cumbersome and confusing.

If you want to learn more about efficient strategies to master EcoVadis, you can jump to the section on setting up efficient processes and read how ESG software can help you. But first, let’s understand what EcoVadis is and why it is critical to your business success.

What is EcoVadis and Why Does It Matter?

EcoVadis was founded in Paris in 2007 and is now represented in Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The company is the world's largest provider of sustainability ratings for global supply chains. EcoVadis evaluates companies, from suppliers from various industries to financial institutions and public organisations, as well as their partner companies at every level of the supply chain in more than 175 countries. Some of the well-known companies that have completed the EcoVadis assessment include Henkel, Lòreal Groupe, Staples, Unilever, Veolia and VISA.

As the business world evolves, sustainability is becoming a key factor in procurement decisions, particularly when it comes to topics like supplier’s raw material acquisition methods, employee rights, and environmental impact. In fact, EcoVadis claims that “91% of companies take sustainability criteria into account in purchasing decisions.” The EcoVadis assessment is a critical tool for many companies to evaluate and manage the sustainability risks and opportunities within their supply chain.

How does an EcoVadis rating affect your company?

As a supplier, your EcoVadis rating can directly impact your business opportunities. An above average score can set you apart from a competitor, and be the reason a customer chooses to partner with you over another company. On the other hand, ignoring an EcoVadis request from your customer or deciding not to complete one, can also be a red flag to a potential customer.

While it can feel like a chore to complete the EcoVadis questionnaire year after year, it is essential to keep up with your customer demands to secure more business. Thus, to remain competitive within the market, it is recommended to look into the requirements of EcoVadis early and find ways to enhance response times.

How Does the EcoVadis Procedure Work?

The EcoVadis process can be completed in four steps:

(1) online registration,

(2) completion of assessment questionnaire,

(3) EcoVadis expert analysis,

(4) online scorecard rating. 

The bulk of the time is spent on the questionnaire and collecting the appropriate documents and data.

The different EcoVadis Medals: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze

EcoVadis evaluates the sustainability performance of companies based on their results in the 21 indicators from the following areas:

• Environment
• Labour and human rights
• Ethics
• Sustainable procurement

Companies can achieve a maximum of 100 points in each of these areas. This point scale enables EcoVadis to compare individual company performance with other companies and thus award medals.

The four medal levels are: Platinum (top 1%), Gold (top 5%), Silver (top 25%) and Bronze (top 35%). Each award shows how well a company performs in these categories and emphasises special commitment to sustainability.

Important to know: Companies are not compared with competitors in their sector, but with all rated companies in the EcoVadis database in the previous 12 months. A platinum medal is awarded to companies whose overall rating is in the top 1% of all companies assessed.

Would you like to find out more about the Ecovadis certification model? Read our detailed blog article: EcoVadis Rating - Updates 2024

What are the Costs of an EcoVadis Certification?

To submit the EcoVadis questionnaire for a sustainability rating, companies must have taken out a subscription with EcoVadis. The cost of the subscription depends on the size of the company and the additional services selected.

The cheapest subscription starts at 409 euros (basic subscription for one year for companies with up to 25 employees). However, depending on requirements, company size and additional support, prices can quickly rise to several thousand euros per year (e.g. for companies > 1,000 employees, the largest subscription package costs 18,189 euros for 3 years). A detailed overview of the price plans for different company sizes can be found on the EcoVadis website.

In addition to the direct costs, you should also consider the actual expenditure, which is often significantly higher. The preparation for the EcoVadis assessment requires a considerable amount of time and human resources, which can lead to additional costs. Especially larger companies with more complex structures often need more support and invest more time to collect and document all the necessary information. This additional effort can significantly increase the overall cost of the EcoVadis assessment.

Mastering the EcoVadis Questionnaire

The EcoVadis questionnaire is tailored to the industry, size and location of your company. For each industry, EcoVadis has also defined various key topics (‘key sustainability issues’). Based on the materiality analysis of the 21 indicators carried out by EcoVadis, EcoVadis decides which of the 21 indicators a company must answer and to what extent.

The EcoVadis questionnaire can therefore be shorter or longer depending on the company. You should therefore allow sufficient time for preparation and take these aspects into account.

EcoVadis: Providing Evidence (Document Limit)

Evidence in the form of official documents must be submitted in order to answer the EcoVadis questionnaire. However, only 55 of these documents may be uploaded to the EcoVadis platform. The documents must adhere to certain guidelines, such as a maximum file size of 30 MB and an implementation and/or review date. Furthermore, documents must not have been created solely for the EcoVadis questionnaire - they must be older than three months.
 However, one and the same document can and must often be used to answer several questions, which makes the process time-consuming.

For an EcoVadis reassessment, documents from a previous assessment can be used again, provided they are still valid. As these have already been reviewed by EcoVadis, they do not count towards the maximum limit of 55 documents that can be submitted.

For specific questions that require specific documentation, attention to detail is crucial. It is sometimes easy to make mistakes because a question is misunderstood or incompatible documents are uploaded.

The documentation used can take many forms and can outline both the policies and the evidence to support the implementation of those policies, such as action plans, certificates, work instructions, performance data and more.

Failure to provide the correct documentation may result in the question not being assessed, which will have a negative impact on your final EcoVadis score. It is therefore essential to complete the questionnaire in accordance with the format requested by EcoVadis.

What are the Typical Question Categories in the EcoVadis Questionnaire?

EcoVadis questions are focussed on sustainability indicators, but also on management indicators - policies, actions, results (more details on the assessment method in this blog: EcoVadis Rating). To complete the questionnaire efficiently, it is helpful to understand the nature of the questions in advance and prepare the associated evidence.

Here are some examples of categories and topics that could be covered in the EcoVadis questionnaire - note that this is not the exact wording of EcoVadis, but a general guide:

Policies:

• Does your company have a documented policy on human rights?

Actions:

• What measures does your company implement to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?
• How do you ensure that social and environmental factors are taken into account in your supply chain?

Results:

• You must report the following key figures for the environment: (In EcoVadis you must disclose certain data here)

Some questions in the EcoVadis questionnaire depend on industry-specific requirements and the raw materials used. For example, companies that use palm oil may be asked how they ensure the sustainable origin of this raw material. Similarly, questions can be asked about specific labour groups such as migrant workers if they work for the company.

In order to process the EcoVadis questionnaire efficiently, it is advisable to choose a structured approach and provide all the necessary documents in good time. This will help you avoid delays and possible loss of points due to insufficient evidence.

How Long Does it Take to Complete the EcoVadis Questionnaire?

As the length of your EcoVadis questionnaire will vary depending on the size and complexity of your business, as well as your level of sustainability maturity, so will the time required for its completion.

According to EcoVadis, filling out the questionnaire can take anywhere from "a few hours to a few days to complete." However, in reality, it can take several weeks or even months to prepare the responses before you can start filling out the questionnaire.

With finite resources, most companies have limited capacity to complete all questions in adequate time, leading to a lengthy response time. Even if you are a large sustainability team in an established company, communication across different departments to accumulate the necessary documentation is a time-consuming process.

The questionnaire is available via the EcoVadis account and can be downloaded as a PDF. Once the questionnaire is started, the company is permitted a maximum of three weeks to submit. If a company is unable to submit their questionnaire within this period, they can request an extension, which, if granted, incurs additional fees.

Because the rating is only valid for a 12 month period, and it can take several months to prepare all the required documentation, some companies might already start working on the following year’s assessment just a few months after completing the first one to ensure they will have it completed in time.

The Result: the EcoVadis Scorecard

The subsequent expert analysis will take 6-8 weeks. The EcoVadis experts utilize international sustainability standards to guide their review, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), UN Global Compact and ISO 26000.

After this waiting period, you will receive a sustainability scorecard which can be shared with customers and compared against other companies. Then, time must be dedicated to making improvements in order to see year-over-year company progression and enhanced sustainability practices and ratings.

EcoVadis also offers recommendations and a corrective action plan to promote continuous improvements and an opportunity to set goals for your next annual EcoVadis review.

Some improvements can be tackled right away if, for example, they concern the evidence you provided. Otherwise, you will have 12 months to work on improvements before the process must be completed again.

Comparison between EcoVadis and CSRD

Since 2023, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has obliged companies in the EU to provide comprehensive sustainability reporting and requires transparency on environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects. EcoVadis has adapted its own questionnaires based on the ESRS standards so that the EcoVadis indicators are aligned with the ESRS. This increases the interoperability between the EcoVadis questionnaire and the ESRS standards so that data used to answer EcoVadis can also be used for ESRS reporting.

In the ESG software Sunhat, you can upload your answers and data points that you used for the EcoVadis questionnaire and use them for CSRD reporting. This way you have all ESG data in one platform - easily usable for answering any other EcoVadis rating, or other ESG ratings, as well as other guidelines. Book a demo appointment now!

How to Establish Efficient Processes to Answer the EcoVadis Questionnaire

If you have been entrusted with the tasks to spearhead the process of responding to EcoVadis, the insights into each of the five steps will help you to manage your tasks confidently. 

Five steps for efficient assessment processes: 

1. Review and organize requirements 
2. Manage and govern tasks for collecting evidence data
3. Set up control and approval processes 
4. Gather all sustainability data in one place  
5. Contextualize data for responses

We recommend that you prepare a respective project plan well in advance of starting the EcoVadis questionnaire online.

1. Review the Requirements and the Needed Documentation

Organize the requirements according to the four categories of questions:

• Environment (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water consumption, impact on biodiversity)
• Labor and Human Rights (e.g., employee health and safety practices, working conditions, social dialogue)
• Ethics (e.g., corruption, anti-competitive practices, responsible information management)
• Sustainable Procurement (e.g., suppliers environmental and social practices)

Each of the categories above structure the questions according to policies, actions and key performance indicators that your company may have in place. So, try to stick to the same structure when preparing your answers.

These 3 layers have specific weights: policies account for 25%, actions 40% and results or KPIs 35%.

2. Manage and Govern Tasks for Collecting Evidence Data

• Assign tasks and responsibilities to various employees
• Hold individuals accountable for delivering requested answers and evidence 
• Set internal timelines for the collection and/or maintenance of answers and evidence

3. Set Up Continuous Approval and Review Processes 

• Initiate and manage control process to ensure evidence has been reviewed and is up to date 
• Know the EcoVadis acceptable documentation guidelines and update your evidence accordingly 
• Govern internal approval processes if answers need to be approved by executives

Tip: Since responding to rating systems such as EcoVadis requires executive participation, organization-wide collaboration and support, top-down influence is essential. Make sure you have executive buy-in to set up long-term processes in your organization and implement them in a way that will continually provide responses to future requests.

4. Gather all Sustainability Data in One Place  

Set up a central place to collect all your answers and evidence

Keep up to date with the latest regulations and standards used by EcoVadis and compare them to your answers:

• More information about Global Reporting Initiative standards (GRI is just about to adopt their standards according to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS))
• More information about UN Global Compact (UNGC)
• More information about ISO 26000
• More information about Science based targets (SBT)

5. Contextualize sustainability data from your evidence documents

Structure and present evidence in a clear way by including

• Reference time periods
• Historical data on your KPIs
• Consolidation of information sources

Tip: Make sure that you reference pages and sections within documents, especially when the same document is used multiple times to provide evidence for more than one answer. For example, your Sustainability Report may be referenced to as many answers as applicable from environmental to human rights procedures. 

How ESG Software Can Help thanks to AI-Supported Automation

While processing a yearly EcoVadis assessment manually can be done through Excel spreadsheets and emails between team members, this adds complexity to an already demanding process. 

Verifying evidence manually is time-consuming and error-prone, considering that data constantly changes and the volume of files and documents increases. Without the right solution in place, performing the yearly recurring assessment can seem like a daunting task.

To simplify this process, companies can use robust ESG software to automate response processes to stakeholder requests. The best ESG softwares:

• Save time by automatically mapping answers to past requests and the EcoVadis methodology
• Have an intuitive user interface that enables you to easily confirm or customize answers
• Suggest new answers based on your data sources in the system
• Provide automated data collection from various sources, such as your ERP system, your sustainability reports, or your suppliers' reports
• Enable seamless collaboration among team members and suppliers
• Come with predefined processes to ensure efficiency and audit-readiness of answers

Using such an ESG software will not only save you time, but also ensure consistent responses. With just a few clicks, you can avoid hours of manual data entry and significantly reduce the risk of errors. Additionally, using automated ESG software ensures your responses are organized in a manner which is easy for the EcoVadis experts to assess, preventing unwanted errors during the analysis. 

With some ESG software, such as Sunhat, your EcoVadis responses from previous years are saved so you don't have to start from scratch every year. With the support of ESG software, you can avoid delays, misunderstandings and missing information.

Tip: Sunhat offers automated processes for responding to sustainability assessment requests, such as EcoVadis. Through providing templates and one organized, central space to keep all your sustainability documentation and policies, Sunhat will help you dramatically cut down the amount of time needed to complete the EcoVadis questionnaire, leaving you with more time to work on new sustainability initiatives and further advance your company’s business and partnerships.

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If you’re interested in using Sunhat to enhance your sustainability responses and reporting to stakeholder requests, request a demo.