◉ INSIGHTS:

Getting to EcoVadis Platinum

What it takes to reach the top 1%

🕒 6 min read | 🏷️ EcoVadis

For organizations already performing well in their EcoVadis assessment, earning a Platinum medal may be the next goal. But reaching Platinum is not simply a matter of adding a few more points to an existing score, because EcoVadis medals are based on relative performance rather than fixed score thresholds.

The Platinum medal recognizes companies whose sustainability performance places them in the top 1% of all companies assessed by EcoVadis during the previous 12 months, subject to additional eligibility requirements. As a result, organizations pursuing Platinum are not working toward a static finish line. They are being measured against a benchmark that can continue to shift as sustainability practices improve across the EcoVadis network.

For companies already performing at a high level, that means looking beyond the most obvious gaps. The focus increasingly turns to how well sustainability commitments are being put into practice across the business, how consistently those practices are applied, how effectively the organization measures performance, and whether the organization has the evidence and results to demonstrate its performance.

Platinum Is a Relative Measure of Performance

Since 2024, EcoVadis medals have been based on percentile ranking rather than fixed score thresholds. Platinum requires a percentile rank of 99 or above, while Gold requires the 95th percentile, Silver the 85th, and Bronze the 65th.

The percentile is calculated when the scorecard is published and compares an organization with all companies assessed by EcoVadis over the previous 12 months, rather than only with companies in the same industry. This means that a score representing exceptional performance today does not necessarily guarantee Platinum in the future.

As the overall population improves, the level of performance required to remain among the top 1% can also change. For organizations aiming for Platinum, the more useful objective is therefore not simply to reach a particular number, but to develop the capacity for sustained improvement as expectations and practices continue to evolve.

From Having the Right Elements to Putting Them Into Practice

Earlier in the EcoVadis journey, organizations can often make meaningful progress by formalizing policies, establishing processes, collecting missing data, and strengthening supporting evidence. Those actions remain important at higher levels of performance, but companies approaching Platinum are likely to find that the next opportunities require a closer look at how their sustainability commitments are actually being implemented.

EcoVadis evaluates the quality of a company's sustainability management system through three pillars: Policies, Actions, and Results. These are assessed through seven management indicators: Policies, Endorsements, Measures, Certifications, Coverage, Reporting, and 360° Watch, or reputational findings.

A policy establishes what the company intends to do, but the EcoVadis also looks for evidence of what happens in practice. That can include the measures an organization has put in place, how widely those measures are applied, timebound qualitative and quantitative goals, and results being tracked..

For companies already performing well, looking at these connections between commitment, implementation, and evidence can help reveal where further improvement is possible.

Five Areas to Examine When Working Toward Platinum

There is no universal checklist that guarantees a Platinum medal. EcoVadis customizes its assessment according to factors including a company's activity, size, and location, while medal recognition also depends on relative performance and additional eligibility requirements.

However, organizations working toward the highest levels of EcoVadis performance can examine several areas to understand where their current approach may have room to develop further.

1. Look Closely at How Commitments Are Implemented

For organizations with established sustainability policies, the next useful question is often how consistently those commitments are being translated into action.

For example, a company may have a policy commitment to protect employee health and safety. At a higher level of maturity, that commitment should be reflected on how the organization operates, through appropriate workplace practices, relevant initiatives, defined responsibilities, employee awareness, performance monitoring, and evidence that the measures are being implemented effectively.

The same thinking can be applied across the assessment. A commitment to responsible sourcing should be reflected in how sustainability considerations are integrated into the organization’s general buying practices. Companies should consider whether these expectations are consistently applied in their daily operations, understood by the relevant teams, measured over time, and supported by evidence demonstrating implementation and progress. Similarly, Labor and human rights commitments may be supported by employee training, health and safety measures, grievance mechanisms, or other processes relevant to the company's operations.

Measurement helps connect these activities back to the original commitment. Where appropriate, objectives should be supported by quantitative targets, reliable data, suitable timeframes, and clear accountability so the organization can demonstrate progress rather than simply describe activity.

This is also becoming more visible in EcoVadis feedback. The 2026 methodology updates introduced more granular improvement areas, including specific feedback where quantitative targets are absent from policies across several Environment and Labor & Human Rights criteria.

For companies working toward Platinum, the practical exercise is to trace important commitments through the organization: What have we said we will do? Where and how are we doing it? How widely is it applied? What evidence shows that it is happening? And what do the results tell us?

2. Sustainability Is Embedded Beyond the Sustainability Team

At advanced levels of performance, sustainability becomes part of normal business operations rather than remaining the responsibility of a single team.

Procurement may incorporate sustainability expectations into general buying practices and management, while Human Resources integrates relevant labor and human rights practices into workforce processes. Compliance and Legal can reinforce ethical business conduct, Operations can own environmental and health and safety performance, and leadership can provide oversight by reviewing progress and holding teams accountable.

This goes beyond asking different departments to provide documents when the EcoVadis questionnaire opens. When responsibility sits with the people who manage these activities every day, sustainability practices are more likely to remain active between assessments, with the data and evidence generated through normal business processes rather than assembled retrospectively for reassessment.

3. Sustainable Procurement Moves Up the Agenda

For organizations whose internal sustainability practices are already well developed, Sustainable Procurement may offer another area for improvement.

A supplier code of conduct is an important starting point, but organizations can look at what happens after expectations have been communicated. Depending on the company's supplier base and risk profile, this means considering how sustainability expectations are integrated into their broader procurement practices and supplier relationships, and how consistently those expectations are implemented and measured.

EcoVadis assesses Sustainable Procurement as one of its four sustainability themes, so companies pursuing high levels of performance should consider whether their work with suppliers is developing alongside their internal sustainability practices.

The practical question is whether sustainability expectations are influencing actual purchasing and supplier-management decisions. When they are, responsible sourcing becomes part of the procurement process rather than a separate sustainability exercise.

4. External Performance Matters Too

An EcoVadis assessment does not exist entirely within the questionnaire. EcoVadis' 360° Watch collects and analyzes information from more than 100,000 public sources, with relevant findings incorporated into the rating. Findings can have a positive, negative, or neutral impact, while negative findings are also classified by severity.

For organizations pursuing Platinum, this reinforces the importance of consistency between what is documented in the assessment and what is happening across the business.

Strong policies and processes should help an organization manage risks before they become issues, identify problems when they occur, establish clear responsibility for addressing them, and support appropriate corrective action. The evidence submitted to EcoVadis should therefore reflect sustainability practices that are genuinely operating within the organization rather than documentation created for the assessment itself.

EcoVadis requires supporting documents to reflect the company's sustainability management system and be recent, relevant, complete, and appropriate to the scope of the assessment. It also does not credit documents created solely to satisfy the EcoVadis questionnaire.

5. Endorsements and Certifications Deserve a Closer Look

Endorsements and Certifications are separate management indicators within the EcoVadis methodology, and both can provide evidence that goes beyond a company's own policies and statements.

For endorsements, the quality of the commitment matters. EcoVadis' 2026 methodology updates introduced more specific improvement areas designed to help companies move beyond broad voluntary pledges toward sector-specific sustainability initiatives with defined requirements for participants. This applies across all four assessment themes.

Certifications provide a different level of external validation. Depending on the theme and the company's circumstances, relevant examples can include certifications such as ISO 14001 for environmental management or ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety. EcoVadis' 2026 methodology updates also introduced more specific feedback on certification quality and, in some cases, the absence of relevant certification evidence.For an organization already performing at a high level, the more useful exercise is to review whether its external commitments and certifications genuinely reflect the sustainability practices it has established, whether they cover the relevant parts of the business, and whether the evidence submitted is current and appropriate.

EcoVadis also expanded the types of supporting evidence accepted for certifications and endorsement in April 2026, when a certification standard has an associated public verification database. At the same time, certificates and endorsements described as "in progress" are no longer accepted, reinforcing the importance of checking the validity and status of certification evidence before reassessment.

Use Your Scorecard to Find Patterns, Not Just Points

When an organization is already performing at a high level, it can be tempting to work through improvement areas one at a time and look for individual opportunities to gain a few points. That may be useful in some cases, but it can also obscure patterns that appear across several parts of the assessment.

Suppose, for example, that improvement areas repeatedly point to missing quantitative targets across several criteria. The issue may be broader than one policy. The organization may need a more consistent approach to setting and documenting measurable objectives. If feedback appears repeatedly around coverage, strong practices may exist but may not yet extend across enough sites or operations. If several improvement areas relate to endorsements or certifications, the organization can examine whether its external commitments provide sufficient depth, relevance, coverage, or supporting evidence. EcoVadis' 2026 methodology changes were specifically designed to make improvement areas more granular in areas including policy robustness, endorsement quality, and certification requirements.

Patterns can also appear across themes. Sustainable Procurement may consistently trail well-established Environment practices, or reporting may not yet demonstrate the results of actions that are clearly taking place operationally. In other cases, policies may be strong but the supporting evidence may show uneven implementation across locations.

Looking at the scorecard this way helps an organization decide where the next improvement is likely to come from, rather than adding another policy or initiative simply in the hope of gaining a few points.

Platinum Is Better Viewed as an Outcome

There is a risk in allowing Platinum itself to become the sustainability strategy. An EcoVadis medal recognizes performance at a particular point in time, and medals and scorecards are valid for 12 months. Medal eligibility criteria are also reviewed periodically.

Organizations can get more value from the improvement process by connecting it to the business outcomes they are already working toward. Depending on the company, those may include meeting customer expectations, improving supplier resilience, strengthening risk management and governance, supporting sustainability reporting, or pursuing new commercial opportunities.

Seen in that context, working toward Platinum can support more than the next assessment. The policies, actions, data, responsibilities, and evidence strengthened along the way can also improve how sustainability is managed across the business.

Reaching Platinum - and Staying There

For organizations already at Gold or performing close to the top of the EcoVadis distribution, further progress can become harder to find. There may be fewer obvious gaps, so improvement is more likely to come from looking closely at how existing practices are implemented, how widely they are applied, how effectively results are measured, and what the scorecard is showing across multiple criteria and indicators.

Because Platinum represents relative performance, maintaining it also requires continued attention. The benchmark can move as the assessed population improves, and EcoVadis methodology continues to develop over time.

How EthoWork Helps

For organizations already performing well in EcoVadis, one of the hardest questions can be deciding where to focus next.

EthoWork helps organizations examine their EcoVadis results and improvement areas in context, identify patterns that may point to the next opportunity for progress, and translate that feedback into practical priorities across policies, implementation, measurement, reporting, and supporting evidence.

The aim is not to pursue isolated points. It is to help organizations focus their effort where it can strengthen both their EcoVadis performance and the sustainability practices behind it.

If your organization is working toward an EcoVadis Platinum medal, visit our Get Started Today section on our website to explore how EthoWork can help you identify the most useful next steps.