What you need to know for your 2024 EcoVadis Assessment

EcoVadis is one of the world’s most comprehensive sustainability rating tools; assessing private and public companies on social, ethical and environmental impacts. Their assessment rates an organisation’s material sustainability impacts based on a thorough documentation analysis, making them a sort-after tool for ensuring transparency across the supply chain. Currently, more than 65,000 organisations globally are rated by them.

Methodology

The methodology is built – and continuously updated – on international sustainability standards (UNGC, GRI, ISO, and more), which are used to identify 21 indicators across four main pillars: Environment, Labour and Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement.

Assessment process

The EcoVadis Assessment process follows a five-step journey that starts with registration and ends with recognition:

Step 1 / Registration

To start the assessment process, you have to create a profile on the EcoVadis website, where you will be asked to specify your business activity and update your contact information. This information is used to create a customised questionnaire based on the industry, sector, size, and country of operations of your organisation.

Step 2 / Questionnaire

Once the registration is complete, you can enter the platform and access the Dashboard page which summarises your progress, the latest news from EcoVadis, and where you can start completing the questionnaire and uploading documents.

Step 3 / Expert analysis

Once you have completed and submitted your questionnaire, EcoVadis experts will analyse your answers and the uploaded documents. The process usually takes from 6 to 8 weeks.

Step 4 / Results

Your answers will be distilled into a Scorecard, which summarises: (1) your overall score with the average industry score (black marker); (2) the scores across the four sustainability themes and average industry score per theme; (3) each pillar’s weight – from 1 to 4. Additionally, the scorecard summarises the company’s strengths and improvement areas.

Step 5 / Recognition

Once you receive your score, you might also receive your EcoVadis medal.

2024 updates

As of 2024, EcoVadis introduced changes to:

• Scoring & Medals
• 360 Watch
• Technical Features

Scoring and medals

Companies now have the possibility of achieving a badge in recognition of their good progress on the sustainability journey.

The Committed Badge is granted to companies with a minimum score of 45, representing ‘good’ performance in the EcoVadis Methodology.

The Fast-Mover Badge identifies companies with a score between 34-44 with a minimum of 6-point improvement versus the previous assessment in an 18th months period. 

Concerning medals, these will only be granted on the basis of percentiles instead of score points. The percentile compares a company’s performance with all rated companies on EcoVadis’ database over the previous 12 months. 

Before the introduction of these changes, medals were assigned to companies with overall scores of at least 47 points and no theme score lower than 20. Thus, the new recognition approach is based on percentile thresholds instead of score ranges, reflecting the growing size of EcoVadis’ network.

Only companies with a minimum of 30 points per pillar can be considered for a medal and the findings of the 360 Watch can turn a company ineligible for obtaining a medal.

360 Watch

The EcoVadis 360 Watch uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify positive and negative news related to an organisation’s sustainability activities in the public domain. 360 Watch Findings are scraped from:

• Official statements or publications of administrative government bodies;
• Content of court rulings or legal settlements;
• Factual statements by the press or organisations recognised as working by scientific standards and financially neutral to the content of said statements (e.g. independent NGOs).

When 360 Watch Findings detect a combination of major violations, the organisation is affected by medal ineligibility for:

• 3 years for the Environment, Labour & Human Rights, and Sustainable Procurement themes;
• 5 years for the Ethics theme.

The effects of 360 Watch Findings on companies’ scores apply for:

• 5 years for the Environment, Labour & Human Rights, and Sustainable Procurement themes;
• 8 years for the Ethics theme.

Companies cannot appeal the 360 Watch Finding while in court. They can only appeal if the issue has been resolved and the company was found innocent. 

For example, a manufacturing company was granted a Gold Medal in 2023 and is conducting their assessment again in 2024. A significant discovery was identified in the environmental assessment (ENV). The company will not be eligible for a medal for the coming 3 years (2027) and the finding will affect their score for 5 years (2029).

Technical features

Finally, as of 2024, the following technical updates will take place:

• Assessed companies will be able to download the questionnaire as an Excel spreadsheet.
• Immediate extensions of deadlines in the questionnaire will be possible.
• The 360 Watch Findings will take visible validity.
• There will be ongoing EcoVadis Academy courses.
• Companies will benefit from an enhanced medal design.
• Metrics benchmarking will help with more transparent communication on a company’s performance across different frameworks such as the Ecovadis methodology, CSRD and SFDR.

Get ready!

The EcoVadis Assessment guides organisations on their sustainability journey and presents a unique opportunity to catalyze positive change throughout supply chains. Rather than viewing it as a routine checkbox exercise, it should be considered a powerful tool to foster a culture of sustainability, both within the company and its suppliers.

FAQ: Your most asked questions

What is the price range?

Organisations subscribe to an annual fee that covers the EcoVadis assessment, access to the EcoVadis platform, access to beneficial EcoVadis resources, and the ability to share performance with customers.

Find more details about pricing according to size in this support article.

Is it possible to get a reassessment?

Since the EcoVadis assessment is valid for a period of 12 months, it is recommended to conduct assessments annually. Moreover, organisations can conduct reassessments for the following reasons: Š

• If EcoVadis assessment validity has expired; Š
• If additional evidence could be used and was not submitted in the previous assessment; Š
• If your EcoVadis rating is lower than is being asked by a trading partner and trading partner requires the company to get reassessed.

It is recommended to take time to understand your scorecard before requesting a reassessment on the
EcoVadis platform.

Does EcoVadis offer support?

Yes, EcoVadis can offer support through its support platform, where common questions about registration, payment, the questionnaire, the expert analysis and the results can be answered.

However, EcoVadis will not provide help on optimising the questionnaire completion. As EcoVadis’ worldwide certified partner, it is Nexio Projects’ role to assist you in assessment completions, assessment reviews, implementations, and GAP analyses. You can reach out to Nexio Projects here if you would like to receive professional assistance on your EcoVadis assessment.

Why get certified through EcoVadis?

An EcoVadis certification can bring multiple benefits to an organisation, among which: Š

• Better understanding of your organisation’s environmental management system (understand your strengths and weaknesses with regards to the Environment, Labour & Human Rights, Ethics, and
• Sustainable Procurement themes); Š
• Increased supplier selection likelihood and evaluation scores due to transparency on socioenvironmental performance; Š
• Increase stakeholder trust and gain legitimacy; Š
• Industry benchmarking opportunities; Š
• Better insights into the material issues specific to one’s organisation; Š
• Ability to share your scores with your partners.

Do we need to take the assessment every year?

Yes. An EcoVadis medal stays valid for one year. Therefore, if a company wishes to maintain a valid
medal, it should be reassessed on a yearly basis. This also comes with the possibility to increase the score, as EcoVadis makes recommendations based on corrective actions, thus orienting organisations towards improvement.

Is the EcoVadis assessment available in multiple languages?

The EcoVadis assessment can be conducted in 8 languages: English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German,
Italian, Portuguese and Chinese. However, documents can be submitted in all languages, there is no need for translating.

Should we respond on a group or subsidiary level?

The answer to this question will depend on your situation, more specifically on the coverage of the
documentation provided, and on the partner requests.

On a group level, you need to ensure that the documentation provided covers all the underlying
entities for optimal scoring. If the documentation doesn’t provide enough coverage, the risk of responding on a group level is to receive a lower score.

For instance, if an organisation is only ISO certified for a site in X country, the documentation will not provide full coverage as sites in Y and Z countries are not ISO certified. In this case, it may be more beneficial to conduct the assessment on a subsidiary level (e.g., on site from company X only). While policies can generally provide full coverage, this is especially important for the measures and reporting questions, as sustainability practices differ from entities and therefore cannot be considered equal.

The decision will also depend on the request to participate in the EcoVadis assessment.

Requests can generally target specific entities in cases where only the specific entity is related to a partner organisation (e.g., if a partner only supplies its raw materials from a specific facility). Conversely, requests can target the overarching organisation when the whole group is tied to a partner, which forms a good rationale for conducting the assessment on a group level. It may be more logical to complete the group assessment if multiple entities are requested to complete the questionnaire.

How should I prepare my team for the EcoVadis Assessment?

As the assessment covers a variety of themes, it may be wise to gather multiple people across departments. Ideally, the people gathered have both (1) knowledge in the topic; (2) access to relevant documentation.

Generally speaking, the environmental questions can better be answered by the ESG manager, who is best able to answer topics of waste, GHG emissions, and sustainable consumption among others. In addition, the Labour & Human rights questions can often be best answered by the HR manager who has insights on recruitment policies and working conditions. Naturally, the sustainable procurement can best be tackled by someone in the purchasing team. Finally, the ethics section can be addressed by the IT or compliance department. Other relevant roles include managing directors or even company owners.

Can I ask my suppliers to complete the EcoVadis assessment?

A key feature of the EcoVadis platform is its ability to manage supplier relationships and increase
transparency through supplier assessment requests. The platform allows businesses (or ‘buyers’) to request their suppliers to undergo the EcoVadis assessment by sending them an invitation, after which they will receive notifications on the process and results.