What do outdated policies, incomplete answers, and missing KPIs have in common? They all sabotage your EcoVadis assessment faster than you can say "sustainability."

Your EcoVadis journey is like a treacherous mountain climb. Every time the assessment comes around, you reach the next camp up the mountain. But one misstep could send you tumbling down the rankings.

In this post, we'll discuss some common mistakes companies make in their journey, why they occur, and what you can do about them. Avoiding common EcoVadis mistakes is the first step to improving your sustainability assessment performance. Settle in, and let's get going.

Mistake 1: Insufficient Documentation and Supporting Evidence

One of the biggest mistakes is providing incomplete or irrelevant documentation. EcoVadis assessments require evidence in the form of documents to be submitted to support your claims and answers to the assessment questionnaire. If what you upload and submit is insufficient or does not relate to the question, the EcoVadis analyst cannot verify your claim, negatively impacting your score.

What does this look like in practice?

1. Submitting policies and procedures that are outdated or do not sufficiently cover your activated criteria. Mistake 2 discusses more about policies.
2. Claiming the implementation of sustainability actions and their results but not supporting those claims with training records, data reports or other documents.
3. Failure to submit certifications, audits, or other third-party assessments that validate your company's performance and the workings of your sustainability management systems.

If the EcoVadis analyst cannot verify your claims, you will get comments like this in your scorecard:

Remember, the proof is in the pudding – or, in this case, in the policy documents, certificates, and other records you provide. Keep them relevant, recent, and well-organised.

Want to avoid this mistake in your EcoVadis journey? Consider the EcoVadis Starter Pack service.

Mistake 2: Policy Mismanagement

A common mistake is outdated, generic or incomplete policies. This is often the outcome of another pitfall – failing to regularly review your policies.

If you don't regularly review your management systems, how will you ensure that your policies reflect your current sustainability practices? How will you ensure that your policies are aligned with current sustainability best practices in general or with the latest regulations and industry standards? 

For example, don't upload environmental policies referencing outdated emissions regulations or energy efficiency standards. You also don't want to operate your company's procurement processes using policies that don't address supply chain risks like conflict minerals or human trafficking.

Ensure your policies are current, comprehensive, and endorsed by your CEO. It's not just about having policies; it's about having the right policies.

How does EcoVadis assess your policies?

The EcoVadis analyst checks your policies (and other documents) following a two-step approach. First, when they open your submitted document, they will analyse its quality. The document's quality is considered good if it follows EcoVadis' advice for documents, as prescribed in the Document Guide. If your policy misses your company name or logo, is not formalised with a document review tracker, or isn't signed by the most senior executive, then the quality is deemed lacking. A document can be accepted or rejected depending on the quality aspects lacking. The second step in the analysis looks into whether the document's contents prove the claim you make in the questionnaire - in other words, it stands up as evidence.

Here is what you can do to overcome Policy mistakes.

Strategies for creating robust sustainability policies:

• Ensure policies are comprehensive, cover all material sustainability topics and align with international frameworks (e.g., UN Global Compact, ESRS, GRI, ISO 26000),
• Secure endorsement from the CEO and other senior leaders to demonstrate the organisation's commitment,
• Communicate policies widely to employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders to promote awareness and accountability,
• Establish clear implementation, monitoring, and review processes to ensure the policies are implemented effectively.

Strategies for reviewing and updating sustainability policies:

• Assign responsibility for policy management to a dedicated team or individual content owner,
• Implement a policy review calendar to systematically review and update policies periodically (e.g., bi-annually),
• Engage with key stakeholders, including subject matter experts, legal counsel, and senior management, to ensure policies address all relevant sustainability issues,
• Seek external guidance or benchmarking to align policies with industry standards and best practices.

Mistake 3: Inadequate Preparation and Collaboration

Another common mistake is starting to prepare too late. It happens to the best of us because we overestimate how quickly we will get the work done, or there is just so much other work to do, or filling in a questionnaire is not the glorious task you saw yourself doing when you embarked on this career choice. So, let's just quickly get on with it.

Filling out the questionnaire or getting your rating will not help you improve. Only the work in the middle—the tangible improvements to your sustainability management systems—will move the needle. This will make filling out the questionnaire easier and improve your outcomes at the same time.

Tiago Forte introduced me to the metaphor of the slow burn and the heavy lift when approaching projects. Many people treat their EcoVadis project as a heavy lift, condensing all the work around assessment submission time. It's intense, like a pressure cooker, and not a recipe for success.

You are better off working on it throughout the year, making steady progress in slow-burn fashion. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither are robust management systems. You can download your EcoVadis questionnaire into Excel and build on your responses throughout the year as you find new evidence and create new evidence through management system improvements. For every assessment cycle, add a new column to craft updated responses and track your management system improvements over the years.

In a nutshell, the antidote to the all-too-common rush is obviously starting early and mapping out a clear project timeline. That's your first line of defence. Gather your team, assign roles early, and set a steady and consistent pace of doing the work, checking in, and reviewing with the team.

While I just wrote "gather your team," I know that not all companies gather teams to do this. Some EcoVadis Project Managers try to go it alone or don't involve the right stakeholders and subject matter experts. The EcoVadis questionnaire is comprehensive in scope and requires collaboration and input from multiple departments. You can't just solve it with a consultant. You need to build the muscle in-house.

Sustainability is a team sport. While doing the entire EcoVadis process yourself is tempting, collaboration is critical. Involve colleagues from across departments early; they are the experts and own the content in their domain. Each department has a role in painting a complete picture of your company's sustainability efforts. As the project manager, you are the conductor, ensuring the content owners hit their notes and stay on time to deliver the content.

Strategies to gather the team, assign roles, and set a consistent pace:

• Establish a dedicated EcoVadis assessment team with clear roles and responsibilities,
• Conduct a comprehensive gap analysis to identify missing policies, procedures, and supporting documentation,
• Develop a project plan (including milestones and deadlines) and regularly monitor progress to ensure timely completion,
• Schedule regular team meetings to discuss progress, address challenges, and maintain a consistent pace.

Strategies to engage different departments and leverage their expertise:

• Obtain CEO or other Senior Leadership team sponsors,
• Identify key stakeholders and subject matter experts across the organisation,
• Schedule meetings and workshops to gather input and feedback from different departments,
• Assign specific tasks and responsibilities to team members based on their management system expertise and areas of focus,
• Establish clear communication channels and feedback loops to facilitate information sharing.

Mistake 4: Incomplete answers

If your approach has been to rush through the questionnaire, you might misunderstand the scope of a question or overlook certain aspects of a question, which leads to an incomplete answer.

You might omit key details or quantitative data requested, such as specific targets, metrics, or performance indicators. One of my clients explained they did not answer specific questions in the EcoVadis questionnaire because they felt what was being asked did not apply to them. If you've experienced this, the first thing to check is whether you have been classified according to the correct ISIC code. You probably have, but it's good to check.

It's not a good strategy to deem questions irrelevant and not give a response. EcoVadis interprets this as meaning you don't have management systems for this criterion, which means zero points. Always try to respond thoughtfully and explain why you think a question is irrelevant or explain what you are doing related to the thing. Give the analyst something to work with.

It might be the case that the topic is, in fact, relevant, but there is nothing to report – your performance is good. In my client's example, the EcoVadis question referenced hazardous waste. My client's business doesn't generate hazardous waste. From their perspective, it's not relevant. However, in this case, it is better if they update their existing management systems around waste and incorporate hazardous waste and their commitment to having zero of it within their policies, including how they work to achieve that commitment through specific actions and describing their approach if they do generate hazardous waste. That way, they can report "zero" for hazardous waste. That way, EcoVadis sees you have your management systems in place, score points on this topic, and have contingency plans in place when hazardous waste does show up in your activities.

Mistake 5: Not using EcoVadis definitions

This is a short one. There are many different ways to talk about and label elements of your sustainability program. If EcoVadis is the primary way you verify your practices, then you could use EcoVadis' terminology to label the different aspects of your sustainability program as much as possible, including in your sustainability report and all the documents and evidence you upload. This makes it easier for the EcoVadis analyst to judge your practices and optimise your scoring. So download your Industry Risk Profile and use EcoVadis' terminology for the Activated Criteria.

Mistake 6: Insufficient reporting of Indicators

If the Indicators you track cover only some of the criteria EcoVadis has activated for your company, you will miss points. Even worse, your management systems won't be up to scratch if you don't track and monitor data. You will be running a risky operation, like sailing without a compass. How will you track the system's implementation and assess whether it works well if you don't monitor data? No data means decision-makers are left without the information they need to make informed choices. On what basis would you otherwise be able to instil continuous improvement?

But you must be thoughtful when thinking about Indicators because different ones play different roles.

Leading indicators are forward-looking and support your actions toward the commitments and objectives you've set in your policies. They are used to drive the outcome you want. They are meant for you to help you steer implementation. Leading indicators are proactive and provide early signals that you are heading in the wrong (or right) direction. They can help you detect potential failure before the fact, but they can be difficult to quantify.

Lagging indicators are easier to quantify and understand. They measure the outcomes of your sustainability efforts, so they are retrospective and measure performance. However, they don't address the root causes of outcomes or explain how well you are preventing negative impacts, so they are not helpful in steering your sustainability management system.

Leading indicators show the systems, practices and initiatives your company has in place to drive continuous improvement:

• Policies and procedures in place for environmental management, labour practices, ethics, and sustainable procurement
• Certifications, audits, and other third-party validations of the company's sustainability practices
• Employee training and engagement programs on sustainability topics
• Processes for supplier assessments and capacity building on ESG issues 

Lagging indicators provide evidence of actual sustainability performance, which EcoVadis uses to assess whether you practice transparency and to measure the effectiveness of your management systems:

• Data on energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation, etc.
• Metrics on workplace safety, employee turnover, diversity, and other social performance areas
• Records of regulatory non-compliance, such as fines or violations related to environmental or labour laws
• Instances of ethical misconduct, such as corruption or human rights abuses in the supply chain

You need to report both types of indicators to tell a complete story. In your sustainability report, your leading indicators support what you disclose about your management approach, while your lagging indicators tell the performance story of your management approach.

Mistake 7: The Resistance

This isn't really a mistake because you will run into resistance. The mistake is not preparing for it. Resistance comes in the form of conservatism (comfort with the current state of familiar processes resulting in: "we've always done it like this"), inertia (a perceived increase in effort resulting in: "this is way too much work"), and loss of control (an aversion to change imposed by others resulting in "I don't want someone else dictating how I do my job").

There are more forms of resistance, but here are some approaches to deal with the types discussed above:

• Respect the past and pitch the change as a natural evolution to unlock future potential.
• Invite employees to collaborate in designing and implementing the change.
• Simplify the transition and start with small, manageable steps where possible.
• Provide training and support.
• Capture and communicate stories of quick wins.
• Communicate the rationale and the benefits for the company and employees.

Mastering the EcoVadis assessment process is within your reach. Taking note of these common mistakes and their antidotes is key to understanding how to improve your EcoVadis rating effectively.

Ready to adopt EcoVadis in your company? Work with me and ensure a smooth and effective implementation.