Your largest healthcare customer requests your carbon footprint, sustainability policies, and an EcoVadis assessment. You're given six weeks to respond.
That scenario is becoming increasingly common. We've helped dozens of suppliers respond to these sustainability requests from AstraZeneca, Merck, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, and other leading healthcare companies.
While every request looks different on the surface, they almost always ask for the same underlying information: greenhouse gas emissions, sustainability policies, governance practices, and evidence that suppliers are actively improving their environmental performance.
In this article, we'll share what we've learned from working with AstraZeneca suppliers, why healthcare companies are asking for sustainability data, and what you can do to be ready as a supplier.
Why Healthcare Companies Are Asking Suppliers for More ESG Data
Healthcare companies have some of the most ambitious sustainability goals of any sector. The catch is that most of their impact doesn't happen inside their own walls. It happens in their supply chains, particularly upstream chemical manufacturing. That's why procurement teams are looking harder at suppliers than they used to.
Healthcare's Growing Sustainability Commitments
According to the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), more than 800 healthcare and pharmaceutical companies have net-zero commitments.
Many have other commitments related to circularity, human rights, and other ESG areas. Most of the impacts associated with these commitments are concentrated within their supply chains, which is driving scrutiny of procurement practices and suppliers.
Scope 3 Emissions
Emissions are the most common request we see, because most of a healthcare or pharmaceutical company's footprint sits in Scope 3. For example, for AstraZeneca, 97% of its emissions are linked to its Scope 3, and that story is similar across the sector. This means a company can't credibly report its own emissions, or hit its own targets, without data from suppliers.
Growing Regulatory and Disclosure Expectations
Globally, dozens of sustainability reporting mandates require large companies to report their climate and other sustainability-related data – and that pressure flows downstream.
- In the US, the California climate rules impact more than 4,000 companies, many of them in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Requiring them to report their climate risks and emissions.
- In Europe, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies to report on many more sustainability metrics.
- And more than 30 other jurisdictions have rules based on the International Sustainability Standard Board Standards.
What Healthcare Organizations Are Asking Suppliers to Disclose
Considering all of these requirements, healthcare companies typically request emissions data, climate risks, and other environmental impacts and performances. Across the suppliers we've supported, these are the requests we see most often from healthcare and pharmaceutical companies:
- AstraZeneca: Requires suppliers with more than $250,000 in annual spend to report their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions annually through CDP, report through EcoVads, and set science-based targets.
- Merck: Requires suppliers to measure emissions in line with the GHG Protocol, set science-based emissions targets, and report their water use and labor practices.
- GSK: Requires targeted suppliers to report Scope 1,2, and 3 emissions, set science-based targets, and, for some specific suppliers, share their water and deforestation data.
There are dozens of other healthcare and pharmaceutical companies that make ESG supplier data requests based on their company's needs and goals. The table below summarizes some of the most common requests we see suppliers receive and why:
The Most Common Ways These Requests Arrive
Companies have historically sent questionnaires to each of their suppliers, tailored to their needs and relationships. Increasingly, however, companies are using frameworks such as EcoVadis and CDP to make reports comparable and consistent.
EcoVadis
1,300 EcoVadis members request tens of thousands of their suppliers to report their sustainability information every year and provide them with a performance score. From a healthcare perspective, EcoVadis has the Responsible Health Initiatives, which helps 12 of the largest healthcare companies assess the sustainability performance of more than 6,000 healthcare suppliers.
CDP Supply Chain Requests
300 members of the CDP Supply Chain also request that tens of thousands of companies report their environmental performance to CDP every year. However, in a typical year, less than a third of those asked actually respond, which gives the suppliers who do a competitive advantage.
Supplier Sustainability Questionnaires
Some companies still create bespoke questionnaires that typically just contain the specific things they care about, be that emissions, targets, or if the company has certain policies around sustainability or governance issues.
Supplier Codes of Conduct
These documents list the requirements that each supplier must meet to maintain the relationship. Some include requirements to report annually through CDP or EcoVadis, but are typically much more comprehensive documents.
Why This Matters for Healthcare Suppliers
You don't need a perfect sustainability program to respond well. You need one you can stand behind and explain.
We've found suppliers achieve the best outcomes when they don't ignore these requests for years before responding. In a recent survey, a quarter (26%) of respondents said their company had dropped a supplier that fell short on sustainability, and close to half (49%) said they plan to. That survey wasn't healthcare-specific, but the pattern holds here too: suppliers who report their data and show progress are more likely to keep preferred status and win future contracts.
And while building B2B relationships with customers is the primary immediate benefit, having a high-performing sustainability program and using it in branding can open companies up to new customers and markets in the future.
Suppliers that go through the process will also gain a better understanding of their sustainability-related risks and how to mitigate them.
What Happens If You Don't Meet Healthcare ESG Requirements?
For most healthcare suppliers, the biggest risk is losing business. Healthcare companies are increasingly embedding sustainability into procurement decisions. Suppliers that cannot provide the requested information or demonstrate progress over time risk falling behind competitors that can.
These commercial risks materialize through:
1. Lost Revenue Opportunities
Healthcare companies increasingly use sustainability in supplier selection. If you cannot complete an EcoVadis assessment, provide emissions data, or set a science-based target, you may not be shortlisted for new contracts.
AstraZeneca, for example, has committed to 95% of its suppliers by spend, covering purchased goods and services and capital goods, to science-based targets. This can put millions of dollars of future revenue at risk if you don’t have a science-based target and sell goods to AstraZeneca.
2. Losing Preferred Supplier Status
Many healthcare companies regularly evaluate supplier performance. Increasingly, sustainability sits alongside quality, cost, delivery, and compliance in procurement decisions. Suppliers that fail to improve may lose preferred supplier status or see reduced spend over time.
3. Falling Behind Competitors
In 2025, 3,000+ US companies failed to respond to a CDP data request. It’s likely many of those were requests from healthcare companies. Those companies are already behind their competitors that responded to the request.
Ambitious healthcare multinationals are looking for suppliers that help them achieve their own climate and ESG commitments. Suppliers that can demonstrate strong sustainability performance increasingly differentiate themselves during procurement.
How the Most Successful Healthcare Suppliers Respond
While ESG data requests for health companies, through the likes of CDP, can be achieved in as little as 2-4 weeks, the best way to make sure you are benefiting from answering the requests and getting the best score possible is to start early, by:
- Assess your readiness: Determine what your team can handle internally and where external expertise will add the most value. This also helps identify which customer requests, such as EcoVadis, CDP, or bespoke questionnaires, you'll need to prepare for.
- Identify and close the biggest gaps: Review your current ESG program against customer requirements. For most suppliers, the largest gaps are greenhouse gas emissions calculations, documented policies, governance processes, or supporting evidence.
- Prepare your submission: Gather the required data, organize supporting documentation, and review your responses to ensure they align with the expectations of EcoVadis, CDP, or your customer's questionnaire. A consultant is best suited to help here.
- Submit and review the results: Once submitted, use your assessment score, EcoVadis or CDP submission feedback, or customer guidance to understand where your sustainability program is strong and where improvements are needed.
- Build a roadmap for continuous improvement: The strongest suppliers don't stop after one submission. They use each assessment to strengthen their data, improve governance, and increase their sustainability performance year after year.
Having supported dozens of AstraZeneca suppliers through this process, we've seen that the companies that prepare early not only respond faster – they build stronger customer relationships, and put themselves in a better position to win future business.
If you’ve received a sustainability request from a healthcare customer: talk to Good.Lab about building a supplier-ready ESG reporting program.
