Are you under pressure to prove your sustainability credentials? Many companies are feeling the heat - whether it’s your customers demanding transparency, or investors looking to see how you handle climate risk, the demand for reliable sustainability data is growing.

What is EcoVadis?

One of the best ways to share your sustainability progress is through an EcoVadis rating. You might have even been directly invited to EcoVadis by one of your customers or partners. With a growing network of 130,000+ rated companies, EcoVadis is a globally recognised sustainability ratings provider, considered the gold standard by many. It is one of only a few providers or frameworks that cover all aspects of sustainability, unlike CDP for example, which only covers environmental topics.

After completing the assessment, EcoVadis gives you a score across these four pillars, which are combined into one overarching score out of 100:

• Environment
• Labour & Human Rights
• Ethics
• Sustainable Procurement

The benefits of EcoVadis ratings

We know you have a lot on your plate. There are so many ratings, regulations, and reporting requirements in corporate sustainability.

But here’s why you should make time to do the EcoVadis assessment:

• Improve your sustainability practices based on the detailed feedback on the EcoVadis scorecard from their expert analysts
• Flag compliance with regulations and alignment with best practice frameworks
• Fulfil requests from your customers, investors, and other stakeholders for sustainability transparency
• Easily request information and ratings from your suppliers to deliver on your own scope 3 climate targets
• Easily showcase your sustainability leadership with well-regarded EcoVadis medals and badges
• A high score can help you win contracts with customers and even access more favourable interest rates

So, let’s talk about how to maximise your score.

8 tips for improving your Ecovadis score

1. Secure buy-in from across your org and senior management: You’re going to need information from several teams and people across your organisation so it’s important that everyone knows about it well in advance and understands the value. Get your HR and procurement teams on board first, as they’ll be key.
   
   
2. Comprehensive supporting documentation: As well as answering the long questionnaire, you have to submit documents to substantiate your claims and provide evidence, such as policies, procedures, and certifications. You can only submit up to 55 documents, so plan ahead and get organised. You can set up a spreadsheet that pairs documents to questions and shows who is responsible for what.
   
   
3. Get started early: Filling out the EcoVadis questionnaire is a big resource investment, let alone doing the work required to improve your score. For example, if you lost points last time for not having a sustainable sourcing policy, then you’ll need to allow plenty of time to develop a strong policy and get it approved. The most successful companies start thinking about their next annual EcoVadis assessment as soon as this one is submitted.
   
   
4. Focus on weaker areas for improvement: If you’ve had at least one EcoVadis rating before, study your scorecard to see how to improve this time. Focus on the areas where you were weakest, as improving here will give you the biggest gains. Also, the low-hanging fruit is usually the easiest and cheapest to implement, so make sure you’re covering the basics for all four pillars before going deeper.
   
   
5. Build on strengths for leadership: On the other hand, it’s worth paying attention to where you’re strong and leaning into that. For example, if you pride yourself on your exemplary labour practices and achieved a score of 82 in this pillar, you could try to improve it even further and highlight this in your sustainability communications. Corporate sustainability standards are always rising, so you need to keep innovating to maintain your leadership edge.
   
   
6. Pay attention to weightings and customisation: One of the good things about EcoVadis is that the questionnaire is customised based on your industry, location, and company size. Not only do you get different questions, but the weightings for how much each question and pillar influences your final score also change. Check which of the 21 sustainability criteria are activated for your company in the Industry Risk Profile section in your EcoVadis account, and focus on the most highly weighted sections.
   
   
7. Avoid common mistakes: Some easy and common pitfalls in the EcoVadis assessment process can cost you lots of points, so make sure you’re not falling foul of those. For example, outdated and generic policies, incomplete answers, or not using EcoVadis definitions. Make sure you check the cover page to see errors, missing documents, etc.
   
   
8. Mindset shift - focus on improving your sustainability: While it’s easy to get obsessed with getting a Gold or Platinum rating, especially if you are getting pressure from leadership, it’s not the right attitude. The point is to improve your sustainability performance and management, and the rating is just a proxy for that. EcoVadis will continually tweak its methodology to follow that north star, so you should aim for that too.

Need a hand?

If this all sounds overwhelming, we can help. Our expert team works with businesses to develop sustainability strategies and action plans, and to monitor and report on sustainability, including EcoVadis assessments. As Kingfisher plc’s trusted reporting partner for over 13 years, we recently supported it through its EcoVadis submission.

We provide a comprehensive support package that includes:

• Providing detailed gap analysis and critical feedback on your draft responses, to help maximise your score
• Helping you develop missing sustainability policies needed to improve your score
• Providing recommendations for future year-on-year improvement