Last week, the supplier rating platform EcoVadis has published its EcoVadis Index called ‘Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018’. The study is showing the average CSR performance of more than 33,000 companies worldwide scored by EcoVadis between 2015 and 2017. Furthermore, the report is displaying regional diversifications and comparisons by industry division as well as by company size. Besides that, also country specific reports are available (e. g. for Germany and France).
EcoVadis Index at a glance: average score of 44/100
In the beginning the EcoVadis Index report is showing some key findings regarding the global scores:
- The CSR performance of large companies decreased slightly (from 40.1 to 39.6 points)
- The CSR performance of small and medium-sized companies increased slightly (from 42.1 to 42.4 points)
- The industry division with the best EcoVadis scoring 2017 is the Food & Beverage sector (small and medium-sized companies) whereas the worst performing industry group was the Wholesale, Services & Professionals sector (large companies) in 2017 (see also fig. 1)
- The same trend is apparent for German companies but the overall score for large as well as for small and medium-sized German enterprises is higher than the worldwide average score (the average score for large German companies was 46.4 points in 2017 compared to 46.3 points in 2016; for small and medium-sized companies it was 45.9 points in 2017 compared to 45.5 points in 2016: see EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018: Deutschland, p. 4)
Besides that, Corruption and Bribery and Information Security within the Business Ethics theme were the areas where companies have improved the most. The score referring to Environmental management, Labour & Human Rights and Sustainable Procurement decreased which lead to a slightly decrease regarding the overall score (see fig. 2).
Fig. 1: EcoVadis Index at a Glance: Key Global Scores (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018, p. 10)
Fig 2: Overall Theme Scores over the years (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018, p. 12)
Comparison across several regions: Europe as top performer
The EcoVadis Index is also covering a comparison across the regions Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, AMEA (Asia, Middle East and Africa) excluding Greater China Area and the Greater China Area:
- Large and small and medium-sized companies in Europe are the top performers
- Latin and North America companies are close to the world average
- AMEA and Greater China Area companies are the worst CSR performing companies scored by EcoVadis within the last three years (see fig. 3 and 4)
Fig. 3: Overall Score from large companies compared by regions (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018, p. 15)
Fig. 4: Overall Score from small and medium-sized companies compared by regions (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018, p. 15)
First public analysis of German companies for the EcoVadis Index
It is the first time that EcoVadis has published an additional report that includes the CSR performance of German enterprises compared with European and Global companies.
Within the worldwide comparison, large German companies are worse than the European average but better than the rest (see fig. 5). German small and medium-sized companies are approximately at the same level as North American small and medium-sized companies (see fig. 6).
Fig. 5: large German companies within the worldwide comparison (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018: Deutschland, p. 6)
Fig. 6: German small and medium-sized companies within the worldwide comparison (source: EcoVadis Global CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018: Deutschland, p. 6)
The most important or rather the most focusing aspect in German companies is the Environment theme (see EcoVadis CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018: Deutschland, p. 7f.). In the European comparison, German companies only reached the 10th rang. The European top three is composed of UK, Swedish and French companies (see EcoVadis CSR Risk and Performance Index 2018: Deutschland, p. 12).
Key themes addressed
- European companies are the top performers regarding the CSR performance scored by EcoVadis between 2015 and 2017. The sustainability focus here mostly relates to the Environment and to the Labour & Human Rights theme
- Despite the fact that the overall score for Business Ethics increased there is still potential for companies all over the world to increase their sustainability performance within this topic.
- Sustainable Procurement is an area which can be improved from companies all over the world as this is the aspect with the lowest score compared with the other fields
- In addition, especially in regions like the AMEA (excluding Greater China Area) and Greater China Area improvements within the Labour & Human Rights area are desirable as these are high risk regions related to human rights. Furthermore, these companies reached the lowest score within this topic as well as within the overall score compared with the rest of the world
Get to know EcoVadis
To read the index, please go to the EcoVadis Library.
The EcoVadis press release is available here.
If you need more insights on EcoVadis: EcoVadis website.
DFGE has been the official EcoVadis partner in Germany, Austria and Switzerland since 2015 and offers various paid and unpaid EcoVadis support services. To get started with EcoVadis, we offer a series of free of charge webinars which you can register for here. For further, more in-depth support, please contact us via or via phone: +49 8192 99 7 33-20.
