Am I required to answer a CDP, EcoVadis or Sedex questionnaire?

Not by law. They are commercial requests: a customer, investor or bank makes them through a platform. The consequence of not answering is commercial and depends on your contract or your customer's procurement policy.

How much does it cost to respond to CDP?

Companies pay an admin fee before submitting their response. For Latin America excluding Brazil, 2026 has three levels: US$2,575, US$1,840 and US$1,175, before taxes. Companies requested only by a Supply Chain member, the Banks Program, Private Markets or the RE100 initiative are exempt.

What does EcoVadis assess?

Four themes: environment, labor and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. The result is a score from 0 to 100 and, where applicable, a medal. Medals are allocated by percentile against companies rated in the past 12 months and are valid for 12 months.

What does Sedex ask about emissions?

Sedex's environment self-assessment questionnaire collects Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, along with policies, targets, permits and data on waste, energy and water. The four-pillar SMETA audit includes an environment pillar.

Do I need to verify my footprint to respond?

It is not required to respond, but it improves the result. CDP only counts verification by a third party under an accepted standard, such as ISO 14064-3. In the EcoVadis Carbon Rating, the Advanced level includes publicly reporting third-party verified emissions.

Which documents work across several questionnaires?

An emissions inventory by scope with its boundary, method and exclusions, the energy consumption data, a dated environmental policy, reduction targets and, if you have one, the verification statement. That set answers the carbon part of CDP, EcoVadis and Sedex.

Guide: Anatomy of a questionnaire

A sustainability questionnaire looks different on every platform, but inside, almost all of them ask the same things about carbon:

How much you emit, by scope.
How you calculated it and what you left out.
Which document backs the figure.
What reduction target you have.
Whether someone external reviewed it.

What changes is the wrapper: who asks, what it costs, how it is scored and how strict they are about evidence. This guide covers the three that arrive most often, CDP, EcoVadis and Sedex, using the rules each had published as of October 10, 2026. If only one of them reached you, read its section and then the one on the folder, at the end.

The three, side by side

	CDP	EcoVadis	Sedex
Who asks	Investors, banks or customers	Customers	Customers
What it covers	Climate, and in some cases forests and water	Environment, labor and human rights, ethics, procurement	Labor, health and safety, environment, ethics
Result	Score from D- to A	Score from 0 to 100 and a medal	Self-assessment and SMETA audit
Who pays	The responding company, with exemptions	The rated company, by subscription	The company needs an active Sedex account

CDP

The request can come from three places: a customer, the investors and financial institutions that sign with CDP, or a bank or initiative you are part of. You can also respond on your own.

Where it comes from matters for cost. Companies pay an admin fee before submitting their response, but they are exempt if the request came only from a Supply Chain member customer, the Banks Program, Private Markets or RE100. If investors are also asking, you pay.

For Latin America excluding Brazil, the 2026 fees are US$2,575, US$1,840 or US$1,175 depending on the level, before taxes. In Europe, EUR 7,200 or EUR 2,975. The fee is the same whether you complete the full questionnaire or the SME version, and it is not refundable.

How it scores

The bands run from D to A and each measures something different. D, for Disclosure, measures how complete your reporting is. C, for Awareness, measures how thoroughly you evaluated how your business and the environment intersect; CDP notes it does not indicate that you have taken any action. B, for Management, awards points for evidence of actions. A, for Leadership, requires demonstrating best practice.

Answering completely is what the first band measures. Moving up takes analysis first, then actions. Since 2026 the SME version can also earn an A for climate.

Verification

CDP only recognizes verification by a third party under a standard on its list, which includes ISO 14064-3. It expressly excludes agreed-upon procedures, pre-assurance and internal verification.

Dates

The response window opens once a year. The final deadline for the 2026 cycle is October 28. If a request reaches you outside that period, the thing to do is prepare for the next cycle.

EcoVadis

It assesses four themes, and environment is only one. The others are labor and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. If you arrive with a sound carbon footprint and nothing else, the overall score will be low.

The score runs from 0 to 100, in five 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 allocated by percentile against companies rated in the past 12 months: Platinum for the top 1%, Gold for the top 5%, Silver for the top 15% and Bronze for the top 35%. A company with any theme below 30 points gets no medal. A medal lasts 12 months.

That means the same score can earn you a medal one year and not the next, if other companies improve.

Evidence is what gets rejected most

EcoVadis does not take into account a document that fails its criteria. It has to belong to the company, be complete, carry a date, come as PDF, Word, Excel, JPG or PNG under 30 MB, and contain digital text. A scan or a photo of a document does not count.

There are also time limits. Policies and actions are valid for up to eight years. KPI reporting, two. And coverage matters: emissions and energy data must cover 95% of the assessed scope.

The Carbon Rating

It is a separate score, for companies with 25 or more employees. Commitments weigh 25%, actions 25% and reporting on results 50%. It has five levels, and the top two depend on things that take time. Advanced, from 51 to 75 points, includes publicly reporting third-party verified emissions. Leader, from 76 to 100, also requires absolute Scope 1 and 2 reduction targets and evidence of science-aligned targets, such as SBTi validation. Neither can be arranged in the month the questionnaire arrives.

EcoVadis does not publish prices. It states that trading partners must purchase a subscription to join its network.

Sedex

Sedex started with working conditions, and its SMETA audit is still mostly social. Every SMETA audit covers two pillars: labor standards and health and safety. The four-pillar version adds environment and business ethics, and Sedex says it is used in around 70% of audits.

To be audited you need to be registered and have an active account on the platform.

Emissions show up in the environment self-assessment questionnaire. It collects Scope 1, 2 and 3, policies, targets, permits and data on waste, energy, chemicals and water.

Which ones to answer

Our rule is simple: answer the ones requested by a customer that matters to you, and ask what result they expect.

The difference is large. Some buyers only require that you respond. Others set a minimum score or a medal in their procurement policy. Knowing beforehand changes how much effort is worth it.

None of the three is a legal obligation. They are commercial requirements, and the cost of ignoring them is set by your contract.

There is one exception worth keeping apart from these. If you export steel, aluminium, cement or fertilisers to the European Union, your buyer's data request comes from a regulation. It is covered in the CBAM guide.

The folder that works for all of them

Six documents answer the carbon part of all three:

Last year's emissions inventory by scope, with its boundary, method and exclusions.
The energy consumption behind it, with invoices.
A dated, signed environmental policy.
Reduction targets, with base year and target year.
A record of the actions you have already taken.
The verification statement, if you have one.

Keep them as files with digital text and a visible date. That is the EcoVadis requirement, and what works there works everywhere else.

The first questionnaire is the slow one, because it forces you to build this folder. The second should go much faster.

The first two documents on the list are the ones Grumbic builds. It calculates the emissions you are asked for, by scope, from your invoices, and keeps the document behind every figure. When your customer asks for evidence, you already have it.

See the platform or talk to us.