Since its founding in 2007 EcoVadis has become a leader in ESG ratings having evaluated over 130,000 companies in more than 180 countries and across 220 industry categories. A purpose driven company dedicated to “guide all companies toward a sustainable world”, EcoVadis envisions a global marketplace where sustainability intelligence influences every business decision to improve people’s lives and the planet. Their mission is to provide reliable, globally recognized sustainability ratings and insights to enable all companies to reduce risk, drive improvement and accelerate positive impact.
At the time of its founding, more and more companies were realizing that their impact went well beyond their own operations and was in the supply chain. Stakeholders, including customers, investors, government and communities were increasingly demanding transparency and accountability. A need existed for global, reliable ratings that would provide the visibility to empower informed decision making, identify risks and encourage improvements from suppliers. EcoVadis developed a science based methodology that provides a holistic look at suppliers’ sustainability covering 21 criteria across four key theme areas of Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement. Assessments are evidence based to ensure the integrity and validity of the assessments.
Understanding the sustainability impact of your supply chain (and for the assessed companies of their own operations) is only one step toward improvement and EcoVadis has continuously evolved its methodology to help companies prioritize areas for improvement, depending on their profile including industry, region and size. Having actionable insights to develop strategies for improvement drives real impact with the average score for companies having gone through improvement and reassessment cycles at 54.2 compared to 46 for companies taking their first assessment in 2023.
Ratings continue to evolve to meet the challenges facing our environment with Carbon and Scope 3 a hot topic. As businesses push to meet their Net Zero goals and decarbonize their supply chain to meet GHG regulatory requirements, the need for more robust carbon assessments that would help gain the critical insight needed to identify high risk suppliers, engage them on improvement and continuously monitor and report on their performance, is high. In 2024 EcoVadis launched a standalone Carbon Action Manager to prioritize risk mapping powered by trusted primary data and designed for improvement with actionable insights.
As businesses continue to be held to a higher standard for success that benefits all stakeholders, reliable, science-based ratings that evolve along with the challenges facing our planet and society to provide evermore actionable insights will continue to grow for both buyers and suppliers alike. As a leader in the space whose network covered €2.1 trillion of global spend in 2023, EcoVadis is committed to providing the data, insights and visibility needed to improve impact at scale.
