EcoVadis Certification: The Complete 2026 Guide

Search for "EcoVadis certification" and you meet a small technicality straight away: EcoVadis does not issue a certification. It issues a rating, a score from 0 to 100, with a medal for the strongest performers. The word has stuck because that is how the rating is used. A large customer asks for it, procurement checks it, and the medal goes on the supplier's website. This guide explains what the rating is, how it is scored, what the medal system means since it changed in 2025, and how to prepare for a first assessment without learning the hard way.

EcoVadis has rated more than 150,000 companies in over 180 countries, which makes it the most widely used sustainability rating in business-to-business supply chains. For many companies selling into European markets, a strong EcoVadis score is no longer a differentiator. It is a precondition for keeping the contract.

What EcoVadis certification actually is

EcoVadis is an evidence-based assessment of a company's sustainability management system. It looks at what a company has put in place, what it does, and what it can prove across four themes: environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. The result is a scorecard: an overall score out of 100, a score per theme, a list of strengths and improvement areas and, if the score is high enough relative to other rated companies, a medal.

Two features set it apart from a certification such as ISO 14001. First, there is no site audit. EcoVadis analysts review documents that the company uploads. Second, the rating is comparative. A medal reflects how a company ranks against every other company rated in the previous twelve months, not simply whether it cleared a fixed bar.

Why customers ask for it

The request almost always comes from a buyer. Large companies use EcoVadis to screen and monitor their suppliers because it lets them compare thousands of suppliers on one scale without auditing each one. That pressure has grown with EU rules: the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive requires large companies to report on their value chain, and the simplest way to gather supplier data is to ask suppliers for a rating they already hold.

In practice the request lands on companies of every size, including small and mid-sized suppliers with no sustainability team. The rating is the same for all of them. The buyer's expectation, usually a minimum score or a minimum medal, is written into supplier requirements and checked again at renewal.

The four assessment themes

• Environment: energy, greenhouse gas emissions, water, biodiversity, waste, pollution, and the management system behind them
• Labour and human rights: health and safety, working conditions, social dialogue, diversity, and human rights in the company's own operations
• Ethics: anti-corruption and anti-bribery, responsible information management, and fair business practices
• Sustainable procurement: the environmental and social practices of suppliers, supplier assessments and audits, and supply chain due diligence

Not every theme weighs the same for every company. EcoVadis adjusts the questionnaire and the weighting to the company's industry, size and countries of operation. A manufacturer faces heavier environmental criteria than a consultancy; a company operating in higher-risk countries sees more emphasis on labour and human rights.

How the score is calculated

Each theme is scored on three layers of evidence: policies (what the company has committed to), actions (what it has implemented) and results (what it can show as outcomes, usually reporting, indicators or certifications). A company with excellent policies and nothing else will not score well. EcoVadis is explicit that implementation and results carry more weight than intentions.

The overall score, from 0 to 100, is a weighted combination of the theme scores. Analysts also apply 360° Watch findings: news, sanctions or third-party reports about the company that can lower the score regardless of the documents submitted.

Medals and badges: the system since 2025

This is where most older guides are wrong. Until 2024, medals were awarded at fixed score thresholds, and many websites still quote them. Since 2025, medals are awarded by percentile, ranked against all companies rated in the previous twelve months: Platinum for roughly the top 1 percent, Gold for the top 5 percent, Silver for the top 15 percent and Bronze for the top 35 percent. Companies that pass a minimum score without reaching a medal band receive a Committed badge.

The practical consequence is that the score needed for a given medal moves every year as the rated population improves. A score that earned Silver in 2023 may earn Bronze today. Plan against the current thresholds shown inside your EcoVadis account, not against numbers from an old guide. A rating and its medal are valid for twelve months, and most buyers expect an annual reassessment.

How to get EcoVadis certified, step by step

1. Registration. Either a buyer invites the company through the EcoVadis platform, or the company registers on its own. Registration carries a subscription fee set by EcoVadis according to company size; current fees are published on ecovadis.com.
2. Questionnaire set-up. EcoVadis builds a questionnaire tailored to the company's sector, size and locations. Larger companies in higher-risk sectors answer more questions.
3. Answering and uploading evidence. Every "yes" needs a document behind it. This is where preparation shows: companies typically need several weeks to gather policies, certificates, procedures and data.
4. Submission and analyst review. EcoVadis analysts verify the documents against the answers. Review times vary with the season and the size of the file; allow several weeks.
5. Scorecard and medal. The company receives its scorecard with theme scores, strengths and improvement areas. Medals and badges appear on the scorecard and can be shared with customers.
6. Corrective action plan and renewal. The improvement areas become the plan for the next twelve months. Reassessment is annual.

What evidence you need

The most common question from first-time companies is "what do we actually upload?". The exact list depends on the questionnaire, but the categories are stable:

• Formal policies, signed and dated, on environment, health and safety, human rights, anti-corruption and supplier conduct
• Management system certifications where they exist: ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, SA8000, ISO 37001
• Evidence of action: training records, risk assessments, internal audits, a supplier code of conduct, a whistleblowing procedure
• Results: energy and emissions data, accident rates, diversity figures, supplier assessment outcomes, ideally gathered in a sustainability or ESG report
• Evidence of governance: who is responsible, how progress is reviewed, and management sign-off

One rule covers all of it. A document counts only if it is the company's own, is current, and shows implementation. A generic policy template downloaded the week before submission scores as exactly what it is.

How long it takes and what it costs

There are two timelines. The EcoVadis process itself, from submission to scorecard, is measured in weeks. Preparation is the part companies underestimate: a company preparing for the first time, with policies to write and evidence to collect, should allow two to three months before it is ready to submit. A company with an existing management system can be ready much faster.

Cost also has two parts. The EcoVadis subscription is fixed by company size and published by EcoVadis. The cost of preparation is either internal time or a consultant's fee. Whether a consultant is worth it depends on how far the company is from ready and how hard the deadline is; the honest comparison is in Hiring an EcoVadis consultant vs doing it yourself.

The five mistakes that cost the most points

1. Policies without evidence of implementation. A policy on its own is scored as a commitment, not an action.
2. Not uploading certifications the company already holds. An ISO 14001 or ISO 45001 certificate sitting in a drawer earns nothing.
3. Answering "yes" where the evidence does not support it. Analysts check, and unsupported answers are marked down.
4. Leaving sustainable procurement almost empty. Companies focus on their own operations and forget the supply chain theme, which drags down the overall score.
5. Starting to write before reading the whole questionnaire. An hour spent understanding what is asked, theme by theme, is the highest-return hour in the process.

What a first assessment can look like

HELLAGRO S.A., a Greek company, went through its first EcoVadis assessment with Enable Good managing the process end to end: mapping what EcoVadis expects from a company of its size and sector, building the evidence base across all four themes, and constructing a submission where every claim had a document behind it. On that first assessment it was awarded a Silver Medal, placing it among the top 15 percent of companies rated globally. The full account is in How HELLAGRO won an EcoVadis Silver Medal on its first attempt.

How to prepare

Preparation starts with a gap analysis against the EcoVadis criteria for the company's sector: which policies exist, which are missing, what evidence can be produced today and what needs to be built. From there, a short roadmap orders the gaps by how many points they are worth and how long they take to close. The submission is written last.

If you want to know where you stand before spending anything, start with the free EcoVadis Readiness Scorecard: twelve questions, an instant readiness result, and a view of the evidence gaps to close before submitting. If you would rather talk it through, Enable Good prepares EcoVadis submissions end to end for companies across Europe, and a free 30-minute call is the fastest way to find out whether you need help at all.