What is an EcoVadis assessment?

What is the EcoVadis CSR assessment?

There are many ways to assess a company's CSR performance, through labels, certifications, evaluations and so on.

EcoVadis is one such assessment (not a certification), often requested by a company's customers to evaluate its value chain.

To make a success of your assessment, it's important to understand the issues and risks involved in sustainable development, but above all to understand the EcoVadis rating system. Like any system, it has its own specific features, calculation methods and criteria, which you need to know if you want to obtain the best possible score and win a medal.

Although it's important to remember that winning a medal is not an end in itself, it is the reward for a good sustainability management system.

‍

4 key points to understand the EcoVadis assessment

• EcoVadis is a questionnaire-based CSR assessment tool that enables companies to measure and present their CSR performance. The questionnaire is tailored to each company's size, business sector and geographical location. It includes specific questions on internal and supplier practices. 
• EcoVadis evaluates a CSR management system - it's the means of mitigating the company's impact that are assessed, not the results. For example, Ecovadis will evaluate the fact that you have carried out a carbon impact assessment of your company, but will not judge the results. Even the "results" sub-dimension refers to reporting.

• ‍Ecovadisbases its assessment on evidence - supporting documents are paramount, every item declared must be justified and formalized or it will not be taken into account. Some examples of actions in connection with the ethics part would be to map risks concerning corruption or to provide training on fraud risks.

• The Ecovadis Medal awarded at the end of the assessment depends on your relative positioning in relation to your peers, your overall final score and your sector of activity (certain sectors are excluded).

‍

What are the EcoVadis rating principles?

This assessment rates an organization's performance on 4 themes: Environment, Social and Human Rights, Ethics and Responsible Purchasing. 

For each theme, 3 dimensions, Policies, Actions and Results, and 7 sub-themes are considered: Policies, Memberships, Measures, Certifications, Coverage, Reporting, 360.

The assessment is based on these 4 fundamental pillars to analyze CSR performance, taking into account their practices and overall approach to sustainability, including their supply chain management.

1. Environment

This pillar evaluates a company's environmental practices. It examines the measures put in place to reduce its ecological impact, such as carbon management, energy consumption, and the responsible use of natural resources. Sustainability is measured through initiatives to limit pollution, adopt renewable energies, and reduce the environmental footprint throughout the supply chain.

2. Social and Human Rights

This pillar focuses on the treatment of employees and respect for human rights within the company and its value chain. Criteria include occupational health and safety, employee well-being, diversity, and respect for human rights in the countries where the company operates. The assessment also ensures that its social practices are extended to its suppliers, by asking them to respect similar standards.

3. Ethics

Ethics are concerned with anti-corruption, transparency and compliance with business integrity standards. Business practices are examined to ensure that they meet the highest ethical standards. EcoVadis also assesses the company's approach to ensuring that its business partners and suppliers apply similar ethical practices.

4. Responsible Purchasing

This pillar looks at the company's supplier management and responsible purchasing practices. It assesses how the company selects and monitors its suppliers to ensure they meet strict environmental, social and ethical standards. The assessment analyzes the company's approach to integrating sustainability throughout its supply chain, by imposing CSR criteria on its suppliers.

These four pillars provide a comprehensive overview of a company's CSR approach and sustainable management practices.

What themes and sub-themes does EcoVadis evaluate?

The Assessment covers 21 sub-themes, which are CSR criteria, for example: Energy consumption and GHG emissions, Biodiversity, Product end-of-life, Social dialogue, Corruption, etc. It is important to understand that not all sub-themes are necessarily assessed. It's important to understand that not all sub-themes are necessarily assessed, as this will depend on your organization's sector of activity, as well as its size and location.

For example, if you're a tech start-up with fewer than 50 employees in France, you won't be assessed on the CSR criterion of Biodiversity.

EcoVadis is based on international CSR standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact, ISO 26000 and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

‍

How is the EcoVadis score calculated?

• Step 1: Each theme is evaluated by considering the 3 dimensions and 7 sub-dimensions. A theme score is established, taking into account the contribution of each dimension and sub-dimension.

• Step 2: An overall score is calculated by weighting the score for each theme by its relative importance for the company (business sector, size, location).

• Step 3: EcoVadis ranks the company according to the percentile to which the overall score corresponds within the industry. Depending on the ranking, you may be awarded an EcoVadis Bronze, EcoVadis Silver, EcoVadis Gold or EcoVadis Platinum medal.

‍

How does the EcoVadis medal system work?

In 2024, the medal system is based on 3 criteria:

• The overall score: between 0-100, corresponding to the quality of your CSR management system. EcoVadis does not award medals if the overall score is below 47, or if the score for one of the themes is below 20 (even if the overall score is above 47).
• Ranking: medals are based on your company's ranking among all those evaluated. Every year, the competition gets tougher, and you may see your place in the ranking drop and not get the medal you want.
• Business sector: if your company is in one of the sectors considered to be at risk (such as arms or tobacco manufacturing).

Medal criteria:

• Platinum - top 1% (overall score between 75 and 100)
• Gold - top 5% (overall score between 67 and 74)
• Silver - 25% of best results (overall score between 56 and 66)
• Bronze - best 50% (overall score between 47 and 55)

From 2024, the EcoVadis award system will become more stringent:

• Platinum - top 1%
• Gold - top 5% sales
• Silver - top 15%
• Bronze - top 35