What you need to know to complete the CDP questionnaire
June 18, 2024
If your company has already received one or more positive EcoVadis ratings, you may be ready to take your assessment to the next level with an EcoVadis Gold Medal.
This is reserved for the top 5% of all companies assessed by EcoVadis in the last 12 months.
In 2024, this would mean achieving a score of 73 out of 100 on your EcoVadis Scorecard. To achieve such a high score, you’ll need to meet and exceed the criteria for Bronze and Silver, and take a much more detailed approach to sustainability management. While this can require significant time and investment, it represents an important step forward in facilitating stakeholder engagement and driving progress on your sustainability strategy.
Read on to learn what steps you need to take to give your company the best chance of being awarded the EcoVadis Gold Medal.
From EcoVadis Silver to EcoVadis Gold: Understanding your next steps
Given the much stricter criteria associated with the EcoVadis Gold Medal, the key phrase to keep in mind throughout the assessment process is ‘consistent and comprehensive’.
If you’re aiming to achieve a Bronze or Silver Medal, it’s not necessary to have complete evidence available for all of the ‘activated criteria’ on your EcoVadis assessment.
However, when going for Gold, it’s important to have relevant evidence for as many of the activated criteria as possible. There is still room for some gaps, but these should not be in the activated criteria most relevant to your business. With this in mind, you should take some time to triage your activated criteria, identify where your evidence gaps are and assess whether they’re in the areas most relevant to your organisation.
For example, if you’re a dairy farm cooperative and you’re lacking evidence to support your biodiversity strategy, it will be important to focus on gathering evidence in this area.
Similarly, if you’re in the manufacturing sector, it’s essential to provide sufficient evidence on the development of your company’s health and safety strategy. And don’t forget your supply chain impacts. Adequate evidence of a proactive engagement strategy with suppliers, customers and others is critical for most companies aiming for Gold.
What counts as Gold-standard evidence for the EcoVadis assessment?
Sourcing the right type of supporting evidence to submit with your assessment is vital to achieving the EcoVadis Gold Medal. This material will be used alongside various other methods to assess your sustainability management system.
It can include documents such as codes of conduct, sustainability reports, records of recent external audits and training materials. All this material should be sufficiently recent, relevant and complete.
One type of evidence that’s essential to provide if you want to achieve both Gold and Platinum is evidence of effective reporting. Your evidence should demonstrate that you’ve set quantitative goals and have an achievable plan in place for meeting them.
Monitor and measure your progress effectively
It’s important to be able to show the frameworks you have in place to monitor your progress. This can include KPI dashboards and policy documents outlining your monitoring practices. Don’t forget to include KPIs for stakeholders in your value chain, such as suppliers and customers. This shows that you’re serious about addressing your company’s impacts throughout the value chain.
Demonstrate leadership commitment to sustainability management
Finally, getting senior management even more involved in your sustainability management journey can help improve your EcoVadis assessment score. There are two reasons for this.
First, achieving an EcoVadis Gold Medal requires even more financial and time investment than Bronze or Silver. Management buy-in is essential, as the investment in sustainability needs to be ongoing all year round. This can be achieved through targeted training initiatives and regular strategy update sessions to highlight the benefits of ongoing sustainability management improvements.
Another key to achieving Gold is demonstrating that sustainability management is well embedded into your business strategy. One way to show this is for executives to participate in industry sustainability forums or conferences, their commitment to excellence in sustainability management.
You could also consider publishing an integrated annual report with a dedicated sustainability statement that includes evidence of ongoing sustainability initiatives. In this way, your EcoVadis score should naturally improve as you work to increase the sustainability maturity of your organisation.
Ready to take your sustainability management to the next level? Check our Sustainability blog for expert advice on achieving the EcoVadis Platinum medal.
