EcoVadis provides a service whose qualification includes a wide range of non-financial management systems that involve environmental impacts. This service also includes different labor practices, where human rights, ethics, and sustainable purchases are appreciated.

Each business is evaluated on various material aspects where its size, location, and the sector to which the company corresponds are considered.

ECOVADIS Criteria for Sustainability Assessment

The EcoVadis sustainability assessment is organized into four fundamental pillars: registration, questionnaire, expert analysis, and results.​​

Registration

At this stage of the process, EcoVadis requests general information about your company, where you must include the legal name, its location, size, and economic sector. This information is essential because it helps to prepare the questionnaire, which is elaborated in a completely personalized way.

Questionnaire

When the service receives and processes your registration, it sends an automatic notification with your username and a link. It lets you create a password. In this way, you will be able to enter the platform to complete the filling of the sustainability questionnaire of your business.

Expert analysis

Once you have submitted the questionnaire and all supporting documentation, EcoVadis analysts assess your responses and the accompanying papers. Thus begins a stage of expert analysis that can last six to eight weeks, depending on the complexity of your company’s shipment.

Results

If your evaluation sheet is published, you will receive a notification via email, and the respective evaluation sheet will be available on the platform. If you received an invitation to be reviewed by a business partner, your review sheet can be shared immediately with the rest of the team.

Any subsequent sharing request may be completed on the platform if the evaluation form remains valid. The evaluation sheets are proper for twelve months from their publication date, but with a Premium subscription, you can share them outside the platform.

Benefits for companies that undergo the ECOVADIS evaluation

Among the profits for the companies which are assessed, the following can be pointed out:

• Understanding of your company’s sustainability performance with scores across the following 4 aspects: the environment, labor practices, human rights, ethics, and sustainable purchasing.
• To compare your company’s sustainability performance with different benchmarks.
• Sharing your company’s sustainability performance with different business partners with the service platform.
• To start action in areas of improvement and collaboration with your business partners.
• Continuous improvements with annual reassessments of your company’s sustainability performance.

ECOVADIS Assessment on sustainable practices in the pallets industry

According to what was expressed by Environmental Leader, companies of any size have been improving their sustainability levels in the last five years. The service was able to assess more than 50,000 companies between 2017 and 2021, obtaining necessary information about sustainability trends in various regions and industries.

The report revealed that after years of oscillations, companies decided to improve the supply chain considering their ecological impact. Thus, it is relevant because this chain encompasses a whole process of creating and distributing goods that significantly affect global warming.

In particular, the Greenhouse Gas emissions released during the shipping and transportation process have been considered.

Sustainability

It can evaluate the performance of corporations considering sustainability, using data from around 2,500 different public sources. Many industries are interested in sustainability today, and you likely want to improve your company’s current practices.

You can update the sustainability of your supply chain to reduce risk and costs. If your company is successful, find out how. It is possible by redesigning the business model and allowing the collaboration of new, much more productive business partners.

It is clear that environmental, ethical, and social performance, or what nowadays is called sustainability, is essential for an intelligent business. Part of the work to implement is monitoring each of your suppliers in many locations and sectors, but it is a fairly complex task.

Then, if the idea is to improve your sustainability practices, you will have to face a varied and growing list of standards, with suppliers with different questionnaires.

Sustainability Performance

Many companies are making progress in a general way. Few are those that have an “advanced” level in sustainability management. In 2021, for example, only 10% of companies associated with the EcoVadis network achieved an overall rating above 65.

65 is the score required to remain within the “advanced” category, where more than half were at the “good” sustainability performance level. Then, only a third is part of the “partial” category, and only 3% were classified as “insufficient.”

In the end, only 11 of the vast number of companies that were evaluated in 2021 earned the “outstanding” category, the highest performance rating for EcoVadis. At DMD, we are proud to be in the process of receiving EcoVadis certification, which will allow us to provide total certainty in our sustainable practices.

Please let us know if you need further details regarding the production of wooden packaging. Consult the true experts, a team with more than 35 years of experience.​​