A Free for Suppliers ESG Disclosure Option on the Journey from Compliance to Sustainability Impact
New regulations, such as the German supply chain act (“LkSG”), the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and related modern slavery acts are more ambitious than ever in their expectations of procurement and supply chain teams. These laws – along with a heightened risk environment – demand greater breadth of expected risk visibility, due diligence rigor, depth of engagement for mitigation actions, attentive monitoring, and detailed reporting of human rights and environmental risks across a company’s supplier base.
The consequence is that a far broader range of suppliers (size, category/industry, location) are within scope of environmental and human rights risk management and due diligence programs.
Disclosure plays an important role in the process for compliance with supply- chain due diligence laws. But not all supply partners have the capacity to engage in detailed assessment and improvement actions.
Procurement teams may have difficulty engaging their smaller, lower spend, or otherwise lower priority partners, or those that are still developing their awareness of sustainability as a business priority.
EcoVadis’ approach, and philosophy, is to meet companies where they are with a more basic disclosure option to meet their customers’ needs:
Introducing EcoVadis IQ Plus with Vitals.
EcoVadis Vitals is a new light questionnaire that seamlessly builds on the IQ Plus platform. Together, IQ Plus with Vitals delivers a powerful risk management solution that helps users address regulatory requirements. It includes an AI-powered document scan, collection, and review capability, advanced risk mapping, direct supplier input via Vitals light questionnaire, and Live News Monitoring (LNM). The new Vitals questionnaire takes roughly 30 minutes to complete, has fewer than 20 questions, and was developed by a team of international sustainability experts to reflect due diligence best practices and emerging regulatory requirements.
This enhanced solution empowers procurement teams to easily identify and engage 100% of their suppliers, particularly smaller and/or lower priority suppliers or those with gaps in regulatory compliance. The questionnaire provides advanced risk profiling through direct supplier input and AI-powered document review - at no cost to suppliers. With these results, users can determine how best to minimize sustainability risks throughout their supply base and create more resilient supply chains.
How Vitals Broadens Disclosure and Solves Mutual Challenges to Comply
After a supplier completes the Vitals questionnaire, their risk results will be shared with their business partners. These risk results indicate if their company-specific risk is low, medium, or high. Based on the results, their customer / trading partner can choose how to engage them. The customer may simply monitor their supplier with Live News Monitoring in IQ Plus. They can also conduct a supplier document gap analysis with the Manual Check feature in IQ Plus and help their suppliers identify key documents necessary to demonstrate that a risk management system is in place. If there is still a concerning level of risk, the customer may encourage their supplier to undergo an EcoVadis Rating.
Vitals can help address a number of challenges facing buyers and suppliers of all sizes.
First, there are a growing number of supply chain regulations in effect and on the horizon. The Vitals questionnaire provides a path for quick and scalable risk insight for companies who need to meet due diligence requirements. Second, many larger organizations have long and complex supply chains. They want to maximize transparency but face barriers when it comes to engaging their long-tail suppliers (cost sensitive, resourcing constraints, etc.). The Vitals questionnaire removes these barriers, by being quick, easy, and free for suppliers to complete. Not only does this provide suppliers a valuable first step in understanding and disclosing their sustainability risk, but also helps larger procurement organizations get a more complete picture of their supply chain risk.
Leveraging EcoVadis IQ Plus with Vitals is a win-win for buyers and suppliers, and will help both parties gain additional risk intelligence and insights across their extended supply chains. Buyers get an initial view of risks and gaps in the supplier’s ESG practices and capacity to disclose. Suppliers gain a better understanding of what is expected in terms of ESG practices, how those management systems should be documented, the disclosure process, and so on.
Meeting All Companies in their Compliance Journey
EcoVadis IQ Plus with Vitals represents a completely new way for all companies to engage their suppliers on the sustainability and risk topics that matter most to them. This new module seamlessly builds on IQ Plus’ risk identification, management, and reporting capabilities for a streamlined and efficient risk mitigation platform. Thus, companies of all maturities can bring the necessary capabilities to bear to conduct the due diligence required to manage uniquely challenging risks across their supplier base.
To learn more about EcoVadis IQ Plus with Vitals, click here to request a demo.
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