Understanding your EcoVadis score

In this article, we share everything you need to know about the EcoVadis score, a tool used by companies to assess their CSR performance.

Through a questionnaire, EcoVadis measures the maturity level of a company in four key areas: the environment, social and human rights, ethics, and responsible purchasing. 

This evaluation results in a result between 0 and 100 with Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum medals for the best performances.

In this article, we'll explain to you:

• What is an EcoVadis score?
• Why is it important to have a good score?
• EcoVadis scoring criteria?
• How to improve your EcoVadis score?
• Concrete examples of companies, DPD France and GA Smart Building
• Why choose Ditto to improve your EcoVadis score?

Beware, wrongly often EcoVadis assessment is called a certification, but it is not. EcoVadis does not issue a certification, but a score and an evaluation of your performance.

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What is the EcoVadis score?

It is a note that allows to assess their performance in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It measures a company's commitment in four main areas:

1. The environment (resource management, emissions reduction, etc.)
2. Social issues and human rights (working conditions, diversity, etc.)
3. Ethics (fight against corruption, transparency, etc.)
4. Responsible purchasing (choice of suppliers that respect ethical standards, etc.)

The result of the sustainable performance evaluation is between 0 and 100. A business can get an EcoVadis Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum medal.

It will be awarded according to the percentile., that is, the company's score compared to all the others evaluated over the same period.

So that means, every year, Getting a place in the rankings is becoming more and more difficult, since more and more companies are evaluated and the methodology is getting tougher from year to year.

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Why is it important to get a good EcoVadis score?

Large companies now have an obligation to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability, and their CSR performance often depends on the practices of their suppliers.

It then becomes essential for them to have complete visibility on the management of CSR issues throughout their value chain. However, each supplier may take a different approach to implementing their CSR policy, which makes the evaluation of these practices very complicated.

That's where EcoVadis comes in by offering a standardized and reliable evaluation system. EcoVadis allows large companies to obtain a coherent and objective overview of the CSR performance of their partners, thus facilitating the monitoring of their sustainable strategy. And for small businesses to respond to the requests of their partners and create a solid sustainability management system.

With this tool, they can better understand the commitments of their suppliers and integrate these into their own sustainability goals.

Obtaining a good EcoVadis score for a company makes it possible to prove to its customers, among other things, the good management of their CSR issues.

Other benefits of a high EcoVadis rating are:

• Improving reputation: this assessment reinforces the credibility and brand image of the company, showing its commitment to sustainable and responsible practices.
• Access to new business opportunities: Many organizations require a good EcoVadis rating from their suppliers, which can open the door to new contracts and partnerships.
• Better identification of areas for improvement: The EcoVadis assessment makes it possible to identify weaknesses and opportunities for improvement in CSR practices, which can lead to concrete and beneficial actions in the long term and promotes the implementation of corrective actions.

In summary, the EcoVadis assessment is key for companies that want to strengthen their credibility and competitiveness on the market. It also allows them to better align their CSR practices with those of their partners and to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

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EcoVadis scoring criteria

You are evaluated on the 4 main themes mentioned above, each divided into sub-themes that may not apply directly to your business. EcoVadis determines the sub-themes, called sustainability issues, depending on the size of your business, your sector of activity and your location.

EcoVadis shows you which themes are most relevant to your business and how they impact your rating. It is therefore important to check the importance of each theme on the platform in order to focus on those that have a medium and high impact.

For each theme, here is the breakdown of the scoring system:

• Each theme has a weight (from 1 to 4)
• Each dimension (policies, actions and results) have respective importance

Attention: take into account the extent of your actions, what EcoVadis calls coverage. If your initiatives only affect a small percentage of your business, they will not be considered as having an impact. This will impact your bottom line, especially for large businesses.

And, as good to know, the bigger your business is, the more EcoVadis will expect you to have memberships and certifications to prove that your commitment is based on recognized frameworks.

At the end of your grade, you will get a medal:

• EcoVadis Bronze
• EcoVadis Silver 
• EcoVadis Gold
• EcoVadis Platinum

Learn more in our article on EcoVadis medals.

The more the company adopts sustainable practices, formalizes its management system and anchors CSR in its business model, the higher his score will be.

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How to improve your EcoVadis score?

To pass your assessment, you need to understand the EcoVadis scoring criteria and clearly define your sustainability management system.

This management system, generally based on the Plan Do Check Act, helps to define a strategy (using documents such as policies), set up objectives, actions to achieve the objectives and a verification system, reporting.

In practice, here are some tips to improve your EcoVadis score:

• Cover all these sustainability issues associated with your business. Simply because if your business emits carbon emissions, you can't help but deal with this subject. This applies to the other sub-topics that your business is concerned with.
• Specify the scope of application, that is to say all the sites and activities of the organization concerned by your policies and actions. This will allow you to have a better overview of your coverage.
• Specify the goals of the organization, ranging from general commitments to quantitative goals for each theme. Without a goal, you will lose points... These must be SMART goals, specific, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.
• Clarifying governance, the distribution of responsibilities, the implementation process and the mechanisms for reviewing your policies and actions
• Establishing an evidence system with the right documents. Attention, EcoVadis does not accept documents only created for the occasion.

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Examples of businesses

At Ditto, we have supported companies such as DPD France and GA Smart Building to formalize their CSR approach to strengthen their performance and obtain a better EcoVadis score.

DPD France goes from 62 to 75/100 + 13 points

DPD France won the Gold medal in 2024 by going from a score of 62 to 75/100. It rewards all the efforts put in place on their 4 main pillars:

• The planet: DPD is working to reduce its impact on the environment by taking steps to minimize pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
• The collaborators: The company wants to be an employer of choice by guaranteeing an ethical and respectful work environment for all its employees and partners.
• The communities: DPD is committed to projects that are important to it by mobilizing the skills of its employees to support local communities and promote social initiatives.
• Their ethical commitments: Ethics and compliance are at the core of DPD's values, which means that the company is committed to high standards of integrity and accountability in all of its activities.

Concretely, to improve their performance, they have taken measures to reduce their impact on the environment, in particular by improving their logistics to reduce CO2 emissions.

They have also strengthened their social policies to ensure that the rights of their employees are respected and that their well-being is a priority.

And finally, they have incorporated ethical criteria into their business relationships to ensure that their suppliers also meet high standards.

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GA Smart Building obtains the EcoVadis Platinum medal

GA Smart managed to obtain the Platinum medal by going from 70 points in 2023 to 85 in 2024. It is thus positioned in the Top 1% of companies evaluated by EcoVadis thanks to its exemplary commitment to CSR.

GA Smart Building identified 8 strategic issues on sustainability topics, of which here are the 4 main ones:

• Environmental performance: Build buildings that reduce carbon emissions and use little energy throughout their lives.

• La resource management and material consumption: use resources effectively to limit their exhaustion and minimize the environmental impact of buildings.
• The exemplarity of construction sites: off-site model : develop off-site construction and increase the use of prefabricated modules to reduce the ecological impact of construction sites.
• Well-being, health and satisfaction: design buildings that promote the well-being and health of occupants, while taking into account the neighborhood and the community.

To improve their rating, they took the time to structure and formalize all the actions already implemented in the company. Ditto helped them follow a clear methodology to meet EcoVadis' expectations and prove their commitments.

These two companies illustrate how targeted actions, formalized processes and a well-defined CSR strategy can lead to a significant improvement in EcoVadis scores, thus strengthening their reputation and business relationships.

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Why choose Ditto to improve your EcoVadis score?

To keep control of your assessment and benefit from expert advice, Ditto can help you complete your EcoVadis assessment. Ditto is an EcoVadis certified training partner, which means we are fully aware of the assessment criteria and best practices for getting a good score. We have helped more than 150 companies improve their performance on environmental, social, ethical and responsible purchasing pillars.

In particular DPD France and GA Smart Building to improve their score, by guiding them to effective strategies and by allowing them to obtain medals (Gold or Platinum).

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Conclusion

The score given by EcoVadis is based on 4 main pillars divided by sub-themes activated or not activated for your company according to its location, size and sector of activity.

In order to obtain a good score, you must address all your sustainability issues and properly formalize your CSR strategy through policies, objectives, reporting, etc.

It allows you to prove to your stakeholders your commitments and performances on sustainable topics.

To help you in this assessment, you can benefit from solutions such as Ditt, which allows you to understand the assessment and share expertise to best succeed in your quest for compliance.