In short
- VSME produces a document you own. EcoVadis produces a rating you do not own but do control the sharing of.
- Neither satisfies the other, but one emissions inventory feeds both, and completeness of boundary matters more than precision.
- The EU value chain cap covers CSRD reporting requests only, so it does not apply to a procurement assessment.
VSME is a reporting standard. EcoVadis is a third-party assessment scheme. They are not alternatives, and doing one does not discharge the other. A VSME report is a document you write about yourself and hand to whoever asks. An EcoVadis assessment is a process a provider runs on you, producing a scorecard you decide who sees. The confusion is understandable, because the same person at the same customer often asks for both in the same quarter, and the underlying evidence overlaps heavily. The difference is what the output is for and whether it can be reused.
What is each one, actually?
VSME is a standard developed by EFRAG at the European Commission's request and delivered in December 2024. It has a basic module and a comprehensive module, and reporting the basic module is a prerequisite for the comprehensive one. Its only standing in EU law today is Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710 of 30 July 2025, which reproduces it in Annex I and recommends its use. A recommendation binds nobody, and that Recommendation states that there is no obligation to provide assurance on information reported by non-listed SMEs and that a self-declaration by the SME is sufficient. So VSME is a format plus a self-declaration.
EcoVadis is a commercial provider that runs sustainability assessments of suppliers on behalf of buying organisations. You complete an assessment, submit supporting documents, and analysts score the evidence and publish a scorecard, scored 0 to 100 overall and per theme. It covers four themes and 21 criteria: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement, so considerably more ground than emissions. A scorecard is valid for twelve months from publication and reassessment is annual and voluntary. Medals are awarded on percentile rather than on a fixed score, which changed in January 2024, so any threshold you read from before then is wrong. Fees are not published.
The structural point survives without those details. One of these is a publishing standard. The other is a rating service, and EcoVadis says plainly that the rating is its own opinion.
Who is asking, and what are they trying to find out?
Different people, usually, with different problems.
The VSME request comes from a customer that is itself a reporter. Since Directive (EU) 2026/470 of 24 February 2026, CSRD reporting applies only to undertakings exceeding both EUR 450 million of net turnover and an average of 1,000 employees, for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027. Those companies must report value chain information, so they need your numbers to put inside their own report. They want data that consolidates.
The EcoVadis request comes from procurement, and it is a screening question. The buyer is trying to establish whether you are a supply chain risk, whether you have management systems in place, and whether that judgement can be made without their own team assessing every supplier individually. They want an assurance signal they can compare across a supplier base.
That difference explains almost everything else. A consolidator wants one accurate tonnage with a stated boundary. A screener wants evidence that you manage the thing at all.
How do they compare, line by line?
| Dimension | VSME | EcoVadis |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A voluntary reporting standard from EFRAG | A commercial third-party assessment and rating service |
| Who controls distribution | You. It is your document, send it to anyone | You. There is no public directory, and you accept or decline each sharing request |
| Who typically asks | A customer in CSRD scope needing value chain data | Procurement at a large buyer, screening suppliers |
| Scope of content | Sustainability disclosures across environment, social and governance, in a basic and a comprehensive module | Four themes and 21 criteria, of which greenhouse gas emissions is one criterion |
| Who checks it | Nobody. Self-declaration is sufficient under Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710 | Analysts, against the documents you upload. EcoVadis calls the result its own opinion, not assurance |
| Effort profile | Front-loaded on the emissions calculation, then annual refresh | Front-loaded on assembling documented evidence, then annual reassessment if you renew |
| What you get | A reusable report you can send to any customer | A scorecard, valid twelve months, that answers that scheme only |
| Cost to you | Your own time, plus any advisory support | A paid annual subscription, priced on request, plus your own time |
| Capped by EU law | Yes, for CSRD reporting requests | No. A procurement request sits outside the cap |
| Does it satisfy the other | No | No |
The row that changes behaviour is the seventh, not the second. Both outputs are under your control, and the common claim that a scorecard is a public rating anyone can look up is simply wrong. What differs is substitutability. If ten customers ask you for value chain data, one VSME report answers all ten. If ten customers want a rating, they want that specific rating, and no VSME report discharges the request. EcoVadis publishes no mapping or equivalence to VSME, which we checked directly rather than inferring.
On distribution, the mechanics are worth keeping straight. An incoming sharing request is accepted automatically unless you decline within seven calendar days, and you have thirty days after accepting to revoke. On the Premium, Corporate and Select plans you can download the scorecard as a PDF and send it outside the platform; on Basic and Carbon Rating you cannot, even though both are paid.
Does a VSME report satisfy an EcoVadis request?
No, and the reverse is equally untrue. But the overlap is real and worth exploiting.
What transfers is the evidence layer underneath. A VSME greenhouse gas disclosure gives you a current-year scope 1 and scope 2 figure, a stated boundary, a named method and source records behind every input. That is exactly the material an assessment asks you to upload under its environment questions.
Two rules decide how much credit that material earns, and they are the most useful things on this page.
Completeness beats precision. Greenhouse gas and energy data must cover 95 percent of the assessed scope to be credited at all, where other reporting needs 80 percent. A tidy partial footprint that quietly omits a site or a legal entity inside the assessed scope earns nothing on that indicator. A rougher complete one earns the credit. Decide the boundary before you decide the method.
Recency is looser than people assume. Reporting figures stay valid for two annual cycles in a reassessment, so a footprint for your last complete financial year is comfortably current. You do not need to re-run the inventory to answer an assessment that lands in the wrong month.
What does not transfer is everything about form. A report is not a questionnaire response, and a self-declaration is not a rating. Sending your VSME PDF in answer to an assessment request will read as a company that did not read the request.
The sensible sequence is to build the inventory first, because it is the slowest component and the only one both processes genuinely need. Where the boundary and method for that inventory come from is covered in carbon footprint consulting, and the standard itself in what VSME is and what your customer may actually ask for.
Does the value chain cap let you decline an EcoVadis assessment?
No, and this is the most misread point in the whole area.
Directive (EU) 2026/470 gives an undertaking in a reporter's value chain that does not exceed an average of 1,000 employees a statutory right to decline information exceeding the voluntary standard, and makes any contract clause to the contrary non-binding. That is a real right with real teeth. It is also narrow. It applies only to information gathering for the purpose of sustainability reporting under the Accounting Directive. It does not restrict due diligence requests, risk management requests or ordinary commercial questions.
A supplier assessment commissioned by a procurement team is a commercial question. So is a tender requirement. The cap does not reach either of them, and a supplier who cites it in response to a procurement request has picked the wrong argument in front of the wrong audience.
You can still say no, for what it is worth. EcoVadis states the rating is always solicited, never performed without the rated company's knowledge, consent and involvement, and that companies can always refuse to undergo an assessment. That is a commercial decision with commercial consequences, not a right. The right question is always which kind of request you are holding, which we work through in which ESG questions you can decline.
Which should you do first?
Whichever one has a deadline. If neither does, build the emissions inventory, because it is the long pole in both.
Two honest limits on what we do here. First, an assessment covers ground well beyond emissions, and our platform is a carbon platform rather than a broad ESG system. A mid-market customer rated us 3.5 out of 5 on G2 in June 2026 and said exactly that, noting no data source management feature and no decarbonisation target monitoring. That is fair, and if your gap is ESG data management rather than emissions, ESG reporting software versus carbon accounting is the more useful page. Second, we support EcoVadis compliance workflows alongside SBTi and B Corp, which means we produce the carbon evidence. We do not complete the assessment for you.
If you have a request in front of you and you are not sure which of these two it is, book a call and read us the first paragraph. That usually settles it in a minute.
Sources: Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710, Directive (EU) 2026/470 and Directive 2013/34/EU as amended, verified against the Official Journal text on 28 August 2026. EcoVadis facts from its own published material, namely the Sustainability Rating Methodology disclosure document (v10.0, April 2026), the medals and badges page and the EcoVadis Help Center articles on the assessment process and on sharing a scorecard, all read on 28 August 2026; where EcoVadis' commercial pages say more than its methodology disclosure does, the disclosure is what we have used. Hedgehog capabilities from the platform page and reviews from G2, read on 27 August 2026. Verified 17 September 2026.
Facts on this page were last verified on 2026-09-17.
