Guides
Practical guides for suppliers facing an ESG request
A customer asked for emissions data, a questionnaire, or a disclosure — and you are not a sustainability department. These guides explain what each request actually means, what you are and are not obliged to provide, and how to answer it once and reuse the work.
Guides index
- Buyers & suppliers
Vendor risk assessment questionnaire template
The questions a buyer actually needs to ask a supplier about ESG and operational risk — a complete, copyable question bank, plus what a proportionate answer looks like from a small vendor's side.
- For suppliers
A customer asked for sustainability data — what now?
Triage for the three named requests buyers send: an EcoVadis assessment, a CDP supply-chain disclosure, or a direct carbon-footprint ask. What each means, and the single set of data behind all three.
- For suppliers
You received a CDP supply-chain request
What CDP Supply Chain is, why your customer sent it, what the questionnaire asks a small supplier for, and how to prepare the underlying data before you open the platform.
- Buyers & suppliers
Supplier code of conduct — what an SME actually needs
Three different documents share the name. Which one you were asked about, why the disclosure is usually a yes/no gate rather than a twenty-page template, and what to check before signing the code your customer sent.
- For buyers
The minimum ESG data set to request from an SME supplier
A practical baseline for round one: the twelve fields worth asking an SME supplier for, and the detailed asks — Scope 3 categories, taxonomy mapping, dozens of policy attestations — that belong in a later round, not the first.
- For buyers
How to implement the UN Global Compact Sustainable Procurement Framework
The UN Global Compact's framework for procurement teams, launched September 2026: how its topics, stages and maturity levels fit together, where to start, and how to handle the supplier data requests its Initial actions create.
- For buyers
Sustainable procurement supplier questionnaire
One supplier questionnaire built around the UN Global Compact framework's Initial actions on climate, forced labour and SME enablement — most questions name the action they serve, and each says whether a Passport already answers it.
- For buyers
Supplier GHG emissions data: where to start
The Initial actions of the framework's GHG Emissions Data Management subtopic in practical terms — Scope 3 screening, the first Scope 1 and 2 data request, tracking disclosure — and where Initial ends.
- For suppliers
What is Scope 3 — and do you have to report it?
Scope 1, 2 and 3 in plain language, and the question a small supplier is really asking: when a customer wants your Scope 3, what are they entitled to, and what is a proportionate answer?
Looking for a specific framework instead?
Guides above are organised by the situation you are in. If you already know the standard you have been asked about — VSME, ISSB S2, California SB 253, Bursa SEDG — the Regulations Hub has a dedicated guide for each, plus the VSME value-chain cap — the limit on what a CSRD-reporting buyer may require from an SME supplier.
EcoDiligence ESG Passports are self-reported summaries structured for ESG disclosure workflows, built on the EFRAG VSME Basic Module with optional IFRS S2 climate inputs. Content is not independently assured and does not constitute compliance, certification or an audit.
Prepare the data once — answer every request from it
A free ESG Passport calculates your Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and organises the facts every buyer request asks for.