What is the EcoVadis assessment?

What is the EcoVadis CSR assessment?

There are many ways to assess the CSR performance of companies, through labels, certifications, evaluations, etc.

EcoVadis is one of these evaluations (it is not a certification), often requested by a company's customers to assess its value chain.

To successfully complete your assessment, it is important to understand the challenges of sustainable development and its risks, but above all to understand the EcoVadis scoring system. Like any system, it has its specificities, calculation methods and criteria that it is essential to know if you want to get the best possible score and win a medal.

Although it must be remembered, getting a medal is not an end in itself, it is the reward for a good sustainability management system.

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4 essential points to understand the EcoVadis assessment

• EcoVadis is a CSR assessment tool in the form of a questionnaire which allows companies to measure and present their CSR performance. The questionnaire is adapted to each company according to its size, sector of activity and geographical location. It includes specific questions about internal practices and those of suppliers.
• EcoVadis assesses a CSR management system - it is the means of mitigating the company's impact that are evaluated, not the results. For example, Ecovadis will assess the fact that you have carried out an assessment of the carbon impact of your company, but will not judge the results. Even the “results” sub-dimension, which refers to reporting.

• ‍Ecovadis bases its assessment on evidence - supporting documents are essential, each declared element must be justified and formalized otherwise it will not be taken into account. Some examples of actions related to the ethical part would be to map risks concerning corruption or to do training on the risks of fraud.

• The Ecovadis medal obtained at the end of the evaluation depends on your relative positioning compared to your peers, the final overall score and the sector of activity (some sectors are excluded).

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What are the principles of EcoVadis scoring?

This evaluation scores the performance of an organization 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, Coverage, Coverage, Reporting, 360.

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

1. Environment

This pillar assesses a company's environmental practices. It looks at the measures put in place to reduce its ecological impact, such as the management of carbon emissions, energy consumption, and the responsible use of natural resources. The sustainable development approach 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 the respect of human rights in the company and its value chain. Criteria include health and safety at work, employee well-being, diversity, and respect for human rights in the countries where the company operates. The assessment also makes it possible to ensure that its social practices are extended to its suppliers, by asking them to respect similar standards.

3. Ethics

Ethics is about fighting corruption, transparency, and maintaining standards of integrity in business. Business practices are reviewed to ensure that they meet the highest ethical standards. EcoVadis also assesses the company's approach to ensure that its business partners and suppliers apply similar ethical practices.

4. Responsible Purchasing

This pillar focuses on supplier management and the company's responsible purchasing practices. It assesses how the company chooses and monitors its suppliers to ensure that they respect 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 offer a complete vision of a company's CSR approach and its sustainable management practices.

What are the themes and sub-themes evaluated by EcoVadis?

The Assessment covers 21 sub-themes, which are CSR criteria, for example: energy consumption and GHG emissions, for example: energy consumption and GHG emissions, Biodiversity, End of Product Life, Social Dialogue, Corruption, etc. It is important to understand that not all sub-themes are necessarily evaluated, this will depend on the sector of activity of your organization, but also on its size and location.

For example, if you are a tech start-up with less than 50 people in France, you will not be evaluated 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, the ISO 26000 standard or the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights.

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How is the EcoVadis score calculated?

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

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

• Step 3: EcoVadis ranks the company according to the percentile to which the overall score obtained corresponds within the sector of activity. Depending on the ranking, you can get an EcoVadis Bronze, EcoVadis Silver, EcoVadis Gold, or EcoVadis Platinum medal.

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How does the EcoVadis medal system work?

In 2024 the medal system is based on 3 criteria:

• The overall score: between 0-100, which corresponds to the quality of your CSR management system. EcoVadis does not award a medal if the overall score is less than 47 and if the score for one of the themes is less than 20 (even if the overall score is greater than 47).
• The ranking: The medals are based on the ranking of your company on all those evaluated. Every year, the competition gets stronger and you may see your place in the rankings go down and not get a desired medal.
• The sector of activity: if your business is one of the sectors considered to be at risk (such as arms or tobacco manufacturing).

The criteria for the medals:

• Platinum - top 1% (overall score between 75 and 100)
• Or - first 5% (overall score between 67 and 74)
• Argent - 25% of the best results (overall score between 56 and 66)
• Bronze - better 50% (overall score between 47 and 55)

From 2024, the EcoVadis allocation system is being tightened:

• Platinum - top 1%
• Or - top 5%
• Argent - top 15%
• Bronze - top 35%