As a conclusion to our annual Sustain conference – or rather, a launchpad for addressing the challenges of 2025 – EcoVadis updates its Index Online, now with data derived from assessments conducted throughout 2024 on companies with 25 or more employees.
Measuring Sustainability Progress of Companies Worldwide
EcoVadis evaluates the sustainability management systems of thousands of companies of all sizes and maturity across three fundamental pillars: policies, actions and results. A company’s line of activity, size and location shape the assessment, drawing from 21 criteria grouped into four assessment themes: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement. Results are consolidated into a 0-100 score for the overall and theme performance and feed the publicly accessible Index Online, updated every year.
EcoVadis Network Sees a 2.5 Times Increase in Assessments Since 2020
Over 1,500 leading organizations now rely on EcoVadis as a trusted third party to assess and monitor the sustainability practices of their business partners. Our collaborative platform adoption increases year-on-year, and we’ve seen a +166% increase in assessments since 2020. Altogether, within that five-year timeframe, over 89,000 unique companies were evaluated, bringing the number of ratings to exceed an impressive figure of 159,000.
First Look at 2024 Data: Average Scoring By Region and Theme
In 2024, the proportion of companies in the EcoVadis top performance categories (scores 65+) ranged across assessment regions, from a low 6% to a high 28% for Europe. Reaching the “Advanced” or “Outstanding” performance thresholds indicates that a company has a comprehensive sustainability management system. These organizations successfully combine responsible corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship with a focus on competitiveness, proving that significant transformation is possible regardless of size.
The 2024 average score of companies of all sizes was 53.4. Companies worldwide have increased their overall scoring by 1.7 points since 2023, topping the 2022/2023 gain. Those with 100 employees or more tend to outperform this point-improvement baseline.
Companies continue to score best on the Labor & Human Rights and Environment (56.3 versus 55.1, on average). Interestingly, the averages for all four assessment themes have increased more or less proportionally, unlike in 2022-2023, when the progress on Sustainable Procurement and Ethics had stalled.
Sustainable Procurement scoring is the lowest across the four EcoVadis sustainability pillars, demonstrating the urgency to increase efforts in this area. Large companies in North America (mostly with a US address), in particular, have been struggling to integrate the requirements and criteria meant to protect the environment and society in their purchasing and sourcing decisions. This group’s average theme score was the lowest among large economies and stagnated, though it appears to be rebounding now.
Sustainable Procurement theme scores for selected regions
These are some insights you will read about in the forthcoming ninth edition of the EcoVadis Business Sustainability Index, offering a window into the five-year sustainability performance of companies across three sizes, five world regions and nine industries. In the meantime, we invite you to freely browse the 2020-2024 compiled data using our Index Online.
The insights and discussions shared at Sustain 2025 served as a powerful reminder of the crucial role businesses play in driving sustainability transformation and building resilient value chains. Stakeholders and decision-makers – including insurers, buyers, consumers, and investors – are increasingly focused on understanding how effectively companies address ethical, social, and environmental issues. This heightened scrutiny underscores the critical mission of EcoVadis and our fellow committed actors in providing transparency and fostering collaborative action across global value chains to meet these evolving demands.
Sylvain Guyoton
Chief Rating Officer
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