Customer Asked for Your EcoVadis Score? Here’s What That Means for Your Manufacturing Business

Perhaps the email asking for your EcoVadis score came from your customer’s procurement team, or you found it buried in a supplier onboarding form. Either way, it’s sitting in your inbox, and you’re not sure what to do with it. If you’re wondering what receiving an EcoVadis request as a manufacturer means for your business, you’re not alone.

More than 150,000 companies have been assessed by EcoVadis, and with 1,500 buyers using it as a supply chain assessment tool, these requests are becoming a standard part of doing business. 

Manufacturers account for more than half of these EcoVadis assessments – more than any other sector combined. They’re also the sector receiving the most requests that haven’t yet been acted on. In this article, we’ll cover why manufacturers are being asked to report, what’s at stake if they don’t, and how to prepare.

What Is EcoVadis?

EcoVadis is a sustainability rating platform that scores companies from 0–100 across four sustainability themes: environment, labor & human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. It was founded in 2007 to bridge the information gap between corporate buyers and their suppliers, and today, it is the world’s largest sustainability ratings provider.

Your customers use that score the same way they use other certifications like SOC 2: as a qualifying factor in the supplier relationship. Medals are awarded to the top 35% of assessed companies. A score of 45 or above earns a Committed badge.

The process runs on a fixed cadence: three weeks to complete the questionnaire, six to eight weeks for EcoVadis analysts to review it, and a scorecard that remains valid for 12 months. Renewal is not automatic – each year, companies must submit a new questionnaire and provide updated documentation to maintain an active rating.

Why Manufacturers Get Asked To Report to EcoVadis More Than Anyone Else

It’s not that manufacturing is uniquely problematic. Manufacturing sits at the center of global supply chains.

The majority of a company’s energy use, waste, and environmental and social impacts flow through the manufacturers that produce what they sell or use. That visibility makes manufacturers the most common target for supply chain sustainability programs. According to EcoVadis, 52% of all companies it has ever assessed are in manufacturing – more than all other sectors combined.

That concentration reflects a simple dynamic: as enterprise buyers face growing pressure to account for their supply chain impacts, they pass that pressure downstream. EcoVadis assessments have surged 166% since 2020.

If you’re a manufacturer with large enterprise customers, you’re likely already feeling it. And that pressure is only going to increase.

What Happens If You Ignore an EcoVadis Request

Ignoring the request doesn’t make it go away. Deciding not to get assessed after receiving a request is a big risk. It signals to your customer that your company’s sustainability is a  blind spot in their supply chain, and that you don’t intend to fix it.

Some buyers are already moving past requests and into mandates. Schneider Electric and automotive company Stellantis both require annual EcoVadis assessments from their tier 1 suppliers. They’re a preview of where procurement standards are heading.

The real cost of not doing EcoVadis is straightforward: losing a contract to a competitor who did.

The EcoVadis Process for Manufacturers, and Why Proper Documentation Is Everything

EcoVadis sends you a questionnaire tailored to your company’s size, geography, and sector. It covers 21 sustainability criteria across the four themes (environment, labor & human rights, ethics, and supply chain) and asks you to submit supporting documentation alongside your answers.

For most first-time reporters, the questionnaire itself can be confusing, but is actually not the hardest part. The much more difficult realization is that EcoVadis isn’t just scoring what you do – they’re scoring how well you can demonstrate it.

EcoVadis expects materials to be structured in a specific way. Evidence that doesn’t map clearly to their criteria is treated the same as evidence that doesn’t exist. For example, per their guidelines, they won’t credit informal documentation without a company name, logo, or issue date. Analysts will not follow embedded links or download additional files to find evidence you didn’t surface directly in the document itself. There’s also a hard limit of 55 documents per assessment, which means consolidation matters: bundling unrelated evidence into a single file to work around the cap is explicitly not accepted. And these are just the formatting rules – before you’ve answered a single question.

There’s a reason EcoVadis has an approved consulting partners program specifically to help companies complete the assessment. This isn’t a form you fill out in an afternoon.

This is also why companies that report multiple times consistently score higher. EcoVadis provides specific feedback after each submission, and companies that act on it improve steadily. The average score gap between a first-time reporter and a fifth-cycle reporter is 21 points. That gap doesn’t close by accident.

Common EcoVadis Reporting Mistakes for Manufacturers

Every year, hundreds of companies get an insufficient score of 0-24. This means that they had incomplete or inaccurate reporting and documentation. The three most common reasons are:

• Rushed documentation: If companies prepare their documentation reactively at the last minute, it will usually show, as it will be dated and may be underdeveloped.
• Generic policies: Policies should be sector and company-specific.
• Ignoring the scorecard feedback loop: Every scorecard reporter receives feedback on how to improve next year. Failing to follow that will result in the same or lesser score.

What a Good EcoVadis Score as a Manufacturer Gets You

With 1,500 enterprise companies using EcoVadis to evaluate their suppliers – and manufacturers making up the majority of those businesses – a strong EcoVadis score has real commercial value.

The main benefits of getting a score include:

• Meet customer requirements. For many enterprise buyers, EcoVadis is no longer optional. GM, for example, requires its tier 1 suppliers to meet a minimum score of 50 across specific EcoVadis themes. Failing to meet a buyer’s threshold can put existing contracts at risk.
• Win new business. A published score or medal makes you visible to buyers actively sourcing from EcoVadis-rated suppliers. Jakala, a data and AI company, attributes €37M in revenue to clients who actively monitor their EcoVadis performance – a figure that illustrates how directly a strong score can translate to commercial outcomes.
• Get ahead of competitors. If your competitor hasn’t reported yet, a strong score is a differentiator. If they have, it’s how you pull ahead.
• Identify risk before it finds you. The assessment process surfaces gaps in your sustainability management system: regulatory exposure, supply chain vulnerabilities, and operational inefficiencies – before a buyer or regulator does it for you.

EcoVadis Help for Manufacturers: Where to Start

With the average score increasing every year (over 75% of suppliers score over 45 in 2024, up from 60% in 2023), it’s getting harder to stand out. 

For manufacturers receiving an EcoVadis request for the first time, the most common mistake is going straight to the questionnaire. Knowing how scoring actually works, and building the right documentation before you start, is what separates a strong first submission from a learning exercise.

Good.Lab helps manufacturers at that starting point. We’ve supported companies across multiple sub-sectors to prepare for and submit their EcoVadis assessments.

We know what EcoVadis analysts want to see from a manufacturing company, and we work with you to get the policies and documentation in place before you touch the assessment. Our clients improve their scores by an average of 25% through hands-on guidance.

👉 Talk to us before you start your assessment.