Our compliance team at Sustainable Energy First often get questions about EcoVadis assessments and what the rating system means. To help, Simon Chiva, Head of Climate Action, answers some of the most common questions in this quick guide.
What is EcoVadis?
EcoVadis is an internationally recognised platform that provides sustainability ratings for businesses. It assesses businesses according to various metrics and then rates them on their environmental impact. These ratings are then used by other businesses to help them choose who to partner with.
Who uses EcoVadis?
Many businesses globally use the EcoVadis platform to:
- Assess potential contractors against robust sustainability criteria
- Get their own EcoVadis assessment and rating that they can share when tendering for a contract
Globally, over 150,000 companies have received an EcoVadis rating.
Why get an EcoVadis assessment?
If your business provides services to other businesses, you might find your clients increasingly asking for carbon or sustainability information. That’s because businesses, especially larger ones, are under increasing pressure to take responsibility for the environmental impact of their whole value chain. You might be asked for environmental data:
- When submitting a tender for a new contract;
- When seeking to renew an existing contract;
- At any time during your ongoing relationship with another business.
Getting an EcoVadis rating provides your business with a score from an independent, credible platform that other businesses can use in their procurement decisions. A strong EcoVadis score will give your business a competitive edge.
Getting started with your assessment
EcoVadis is a paid service, with the subscription price tailored to your company size and location.
Your first step is to register your company on the EcoVadis platform for a free preview. To go ahead with the actual assessment, you’ll need to sign up for a subscription plan.
The assessment itself is thorough. You will need to answer questions based on all possible aspects of your company’s sustainability impact. You will also need to provide documents to support your answers. If your business has been gathering emissions data for compliance schemes such as SECR, this will prove useful for the carbon part of the EcoVadis assessment. So will any data gathered for voluntary schemes like the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Achieving the best score for you
Many businesses find the EcoVadis process daunting, especially if it is the first third-party sustainability assessment they have done. Sustainable Energy First can help with this and guide you through the process to reduce the impact on your company resources.
What if we’re not happy with our EcoVadis score?
Your EcoVadis assessment isn’t a pass/fail. It’s a much more complex evaluation of how your organisation is performing against multiple metrics. Your sustainability score covers four themes:
- Environment
- Labour & Human Rights
- Ethics
- Sustainable Procurement
There is also a separate dedicated scorecard on carbon.
Businesses earn EcoVadis medals based on their overall percentile ranking, including Bronze (top 35%), Silver (top 15%), Gold (top 5%) and Platinum (top 1%). These medals provide a quick benchmark of how a company’s sustainability performance compares with others assessed on the platform.
The good news is that lots of the information in your assessment is actionable. At Sustainable Energy First, our experts regularly work with companies to review their results and pinpoint practical improvements that can strengthen their scores in future assessments. As with any business improvement strategy, we start with the quick, cost-effective changes first and then move on to the trickier areas. Our support can include reviewing carbon reporting, strengthening supporting evidence and helping organisations align with recognised sustainability frameworks (such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Science Based Targets initiative) to improve the quality and credibility of future submissions.
Will our EcoVadis score stay relevant?
As we’ve pointed out, the businesses you partner with are under pressure to investigate their value chains and be transparent about what they find. That pressure comes from multiple sources and it’s not going away – it’s growing. Getting a strong EcoVadis score gives potential partners confidence that your business operates in line with their own sustainability goals.
To find out how we can help you get the best possible score, get in touch.
