EcoVadis does not certify anything. It gives a score from 0 to 100 that lasts 12 months, and medals are handed out by comparing you with every company assessed in the past year. The same 60 can earn Bronze this year and no medal next year.
That gap, between an absolute score and a relative medal, explains most surprises with EcoVadis. This guide walks through how the score is built, how medals are won, what evidence counts and how carbon is rated, using the methodology EcoVadis has applied since January 2026.
What it is, and why it is not a certification
EcoVadis is a French company founded in 2007 that rates the sustainability of other companies. According to its website, it has rated more than 175,000 companies in more than 180 countries.
The rating is based on documents. You answer an online questionnaire, upload evidence and an analyst reviews it. There is no visit to your sites and no standard whose compliance is certified, as there is with ISO 14001.
That is why EcoVadis rating is more accurate than EcoVadis certification, even though the second phrase is the one people search for.
Who asks for it and what is at stake
Almost always, a customer. Large companies use EcoVadis to assess their suppliers without reviewing each one themselves. The request arrives as an invitation to the platform.
It is not mandatory. The EcoVadis methodology says its assessments are always requested and carried out with the rated company's consent, and that the company can refuse. What is at stake is commercial: it depends on your contract or your customer's purchasing policy.
Before you start, ask what result they expect. Some only ask you to respond. Others require a minimum score or a medal, and that changes how much effort is worth it.
How the score is built
The assessment covers four themes and 21 criteria:
| Theme | What it reviews |
|---|---|
| Environment | Energy and emissions, water, biodiversity, pollution, materials and waste, and the impact of your products |
| Labor and human rights | Health and safety, working conditions, social dialogue, diversity, child and forced labor |
| Ethics | Corruption, anti-competitive practices and responsible information management |
| Sustainable procurement | How you assess the environmental and social performance of your own suppliers |
The themes do not weigh the same. Each one gets a weight from 1 to 4 depending on your industry, your size and the countries you operate in. A chemicals plant and a consultancy get the same base questionnaire, but not the same weight on environment.
Within each theme, the score comes from seven management indicators. Grouped, they weigh:
| What is measured | Weight |
|---|---|
| Actions: concrete measures and certifications | 40% |
| Review of external sources, the 360° Watch | 21% |
| Policies | 20% |
| Reporting of results | 14% |
| Endorsements of external initiatives | 5% |
The practical reading is simple: documented actions are worth twice as much as policies. A signed environmental policy helps, but without evidence of what you did, the score falls short.
The 360° Watch is the part you do not control. EcoVadis reviews news, NGO databases and public records about your company, and a negative finding lowers that theme's score.
The methodology also adjusts the result for size, with a factor that favors small and medium companies, and for the risk of the countries where the headquarters and operations are.
Score bands and medals
The overall score falls into five fixed bands:
| Score | Level |
|---|---|
| 85 to 100 | Outstanding |
| 65 to 84 | Advanced |
| 45 to 64 | Good |
| 25 to 44 | Partial |
| 0 to 24 | Insufficient |
Medals work separately. They are awarded by percentile, comparing your score with the companies assessed in the 12 months before your result is published:
| Medal | Where you need to be |
|---|---|
| Platinum | Top 1% |
| Gold | Top 5% |
| Silver | Top 15% |
| Bronze | Top 35% |
There are two more conditions. No theme can score below 30, and the review of external sources cannot be at its lowest score in a theme, with some exceptions. With 70 overall and 25 in sustainable procurement, you get no medal.
If you do not reach a medal, there are two badges. Committed is for scores of 45 or more. Fast Mover recognizes companies scoring between 34 and 44 that gained at least 6 points within 18 months. Neither can be held at the same time as a medal.
Some industries are excluded from medals and badges even with a good score: tobacco, weapons, coal mining, and companies with more than 20% of their revenue or power from coal or from unconventional oil and gas.
The score, the medal and the badge last 12 months. Then they expire, and keeping them means being assessed again.
The process, step by step
- You register on the platform, usually from a customer's invitation.
- EcoVadis builds your questionnaire from your industry, size and countries.
- You answer and upload evidence. The invitation sets the deadline, 30 business days by default, and you can upload up to 55 documents.
- An analyst reviews the documents, scores and validates. Only what is backed by evidence counts. The review of external sources runs at the same time.
- You get your scorecard with the score per theme, strengths and areas for improvement. EcoVadis says this takes about six to eight weeks from submission.
- You can build a corrective action plan on the platform. It does not change the current score: improvements count at the next assessment.
EcoVadis recommends being assessed once a year, which matches how long the result is valid.
Evidence, where most points are lost
An answer without a document scores nothing. Neither does a document that fails the criteria. It has to:
- Belong to your company and be complete.
- Show a date.
- Come as PDF, Word, Excel, JPG or PNG, under 30 MB.
- Contain digital text. A scan or a photo of a paper does not count.
Documents also expire. Policies and actions are valid for up to eight years. Reports with indicators, two. Third-party certifications, whatever their own certificate says.
And coverage matters. A report with indicators counts if it covers at least 80% of your operations. For emissions and energy, the bar rises to 95%. An inventory that measures only the head office of a company with three plants falls short.
If your company is small
EcoVadis sorts companies into four sizes by number of employees: extra small, 1 to 25; small, 26 to 99; medium, 100 to 999; and large, 1,000 or more.
Extra small companies get a simplified questionnaire: in ethics and sustainable procurement they are not asked for endorsements or reports. Small and medium companies are not assessed on coverage, which is only measured for large ones.
The carbon part
Carbon shows up twice in EcoVadis.
The first is inside the overall rating, in the energy and emissions criterion of the environment theme. It asks whether you measure your emissions, whether you have targets and what actions you took, and the 95% coverage rule applies.
The second is the Carbon Rating, a separate product for companies with 25 or more employees. It has its own score from 0 to 100 and five levels:
| Score | Level |
|---|---|
| 76 to 100 | Leader |
| 51 to 75 | Advanced |
| 21 to 50 | Intermediate |
| 1 to 20 | Beginner |
| 0 | Insufficient |
The top two have their own requirements. Advanced requires a complete emissions management system, with public reporting of emissions verified by a third party. Leader requires all of that, plus absolute reduction targets for scopes 1 and 2 and science-aligned targets, such as SBTi validation.
The score weighs reporting of results at 50%, commitments at 25% and actions at 25%. Within actions, scopes 1 and 2 count for 60% and scope 3 for 40%.
The inventory has to cover at least 95% of your operations and follow the GHG Protocol, with scopes 1 and 2 and the 15 categories of scope 3. Other standards, such as ISO 14064, are also accepted. Since 2026 it asks for scope 2 calculated both location-based and market-based, and for scope 2 targets under both methods.
The top two levels ask for things you cannot get in the month the questionnaire arrives. Third-party verification takes weeks, and an SBTi-validated target takes months. If your customer asks for Advanced, start a year ahead.
What it costs
EcoVadis does not publish prices. Its plans page shows the Carbon Rating and four sustainability rating plans for suppliers: Basic, Premium, Select and Corporate.
The rated company pays the subscription. One detail worth checking before you choose: medals and badges are included from the Premium plan up. With the Basic plan you get a score, but no medal.
How to raise the score
Our view, based on how the methodology weighs things:
- Document what you already do. Actions are worth 40% of each theme, and many companies lose points for measures that exist but are not written down.
- Date and sign every policy. A policy without a date is not considered.
- Measure your emissions with full coverage. 95% is required for the report to count, in the overall rating and in the Carbon Rating.
- Check your weakest theme before the total. Below 30 in any of them, there is no medal.
- Use the corrective action plan. It does not raise today's score, but it organizes what you will show at the next assessment.
If EcoVadis arrived together with CDP or another questionnaire, the sustainability questionnaires guide shows which documents work for all of them.
Where Grumbic fits
The carbon part asks for the most evidence and is the one most often rejected for coverage. Grumbic calculates your scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions under the GHG Protocol from your invoices, covers all your sites and links every figure to the document it came from. That is the evidence the EcoVadis analyst reviews.
See the platform or book a demo.
Sources
Information reviewed on November 4, 2026 in the EcoVadis methodology documents in force since January 2026. EcoVadis updates its methodology every quarter.
