You worked hard to get your EcoVadis score. So watching it drop feels bad. The worst part? Sometimes you don’t know why it happened. Your sustainability work might be good, but your rating still falls. Understanding what causes an EcoVadis rating decline is the first step to protecting your position.
How EcoVadis scoring works
The EcoVadis assessment looks at your company across four core sustainability themes: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. Within these themes, EcoVadis checks 21 specific sustainability issues.
Your score is not fixed. EcoVadis uses seven key management indicators to assess each theme: policy, actions, monitoring and measures, results, training and communication, verification, and responsibility and accountability. Each indicator gets a score from 0 to 100, which are combined to create theme scores. These theme scores are then weighted based on your company’s industry, size, and location to create your overall EcoVadis score.
Here’s the important bit: your score is relative to your industry peers. As other companies in your sector improve or as EcoVadis updates its methodology, the bar gets higher. What earned you a Silver medal last year might not be enough this year, even if your performance hasn’t changed.
What can cause your EcoVadis score to drop?
An EcoVadis score drop rarely happens suddenly. Several specific factors can trigger a decline:
- Outdated or missing documentation – EcoVadis analysts check your responses against supporting documents, so expired certifications, old policies, or lack of evidence will lower your score regardless of your actual sustainability efforts.
- Changes in industry benchmarks – Since your score is weighted against sector peers, improvements by competitors can push your rating down even when your own performance remains constant.
- New regulatory requirements – As frameworks like CSRD and EU Taxonomy expand reporting expectations, EcoVadis adjusts its assessment criteria, meaning companies that haven’t adapted will see declining scores.
- Gaps between policy and implementation – Having well-written sustainability policies means little if you cannot demonstrate monitoring, measurement, and tangible action.
- Supply chain issues – The Sustainable Procurement theme carries significant weight, so poor supplier sustainability performance or inadequate supply chain risk management will directly impact your overall rating.
- Lack of evidence for continuous improvement – EcoVadis values progress over time, meaning failure to track results, set new targets, or address previous improvement areas represents missed opportunities.
- Controversies or negative media coverage – Through its 3600 Watch process, EcoVadis scans thousands of external sources for negative information, and recent incidents can affect scores even after resolution.
- Not responding to corrective action plans – Ignoring improvement areas identified in previous assessments signals lack of commitment and will be reflected in declining scores.
These factors often work together to create compounding effects. The good news? These decline factors follow predictable patterns. You can identify them before they impact your rating. By learning to spot the early warning signs, you can take action early rather than trying to fix things later.
Spotting the warning signs before your score drops
Most score drops can be prevented if you know what to watch for. Catching these red flags early gives you time to fix things before your next assessment:
- Approaching reassessment deadlines with outdated documentation – When months have passed since reviewing sustainability policies or gathering supporting evidence, your materials are likely too stale to withstand analytical scrutiny.
- Changes in reporting frameworks – Major standard evolutions like CSRD, CDP, or SBTI updates often trigger EcoVadis criteria adjustments, so failing to track these developments means missing new expectations.
- Unaddressed internal audit findings – Gaps in policy implementation, monitoring systems, or compliance identified by your own reviews will certainly be spotted by EcoVadis assessors.
- Supply chain partners with poor sustainability performance – Working with suppliers who haven’t completed assessments or have low scores puts your Sustainable Procurement theme at risk.
- Gaps in monitoring systems – Without tracking key performance indicators, measuring progress against targets, or documenting improvements, you’ll lack the evidence EcoVadis requires for higher scores.
These warning signs often appear well before reassessment time. Companies that maintain strong scores treat sustainability as an ongoing process rather than an annual rush. By establishing regular review cycles, maintaining current documentation, and continuously monitoring both internal performance and external developments, you can identify and address potential issues before they become score-impacting problems.
Get expert support to protect your EcoVadis rating
Maintaining a strong EcoVadis score requires continuous attention, up-to-date documentation, alignment with evolving standards, and the ability to show real progress. That’s a lot to manage when you’re juggling everything else.
You might need a sustainability reporting expert to refresh your documentation, a supply chain specialist to address procurement gaps, or a consultant to align with CSRD, CDP, SBTI, B Corp, or EU Taxonomy requirements. At Dazzle, we match organisations with pre-screened sustainability freelancers who can step in quickly to protect and improve your rating. Our flexible approach means you get exactly the specialist support you need, when you need it.
We can connect you with qualified experts within 48 hours. Reach out to our team today and let’s make sure your EcoVadis score reflects the real sustainability work you’re doing.
