Free Supplier Assessment tool, Live Now
A simpler way to collect sustainability data from your suppliers, and it's completely free to use both for you and your suppliers. Improve your yearly supplier follow-up process with automated reminders and a live status overview.
At some point in the last few years, "sustainability" became something procurement teams, banks and investors ask about before decisions are made. For large companies subject to the CSRD, that has come with a concrete requirement: document your value chain. Which means asking your suppliers for sustainability data.
For the suppliers receiving those requests, typically smaller companies, this has created a familiar problem. A questionnaire arrives, it is not entirely clear what is being asked, and there is no ready answer. For the companies doing the asking, managing responses across dozens or hundreds of suppliers is its own headache.
Today we are launching the Supplier Assessment, the first service live on the Format Green platform. It is free, for everyone.
What it does
The Supplier Assessment gives larger companies a structured, branded way to collect sustainability data from their suppliers. You add your suppliers to the platform, adjust the pre-filled survey if you wish, add multiple languages, send a collection request, and track responses in real time. This removes the time consuming back-and-forth emailing and the need to manually update a spreadsheet when new responses come in.
On the supplier side, things are equally straightforward. You receive a link, fill in some standard information about your company and you continue to the questionnaire. There is no account required, and if needed you are able to come back to the questionnaire at a later time. There is no software to install, and nothing to set up in advance.
Why it's free
Europe has roughly 32 million SMEs. Most of them are already receiving sustainability data requests from their larger customers, but almost none of them have the right tools to respond in a structured, credible way. That gap makes the whole system work worse for everyone.
We do not think good sustainability data should be locked behind enterprise pricing. So we made the Supplier Assessment free: for the companies sending requests, as well as for the suppliers responding to them.
See it in action
We have put together a short walkthrough video, in Swedish, that goes through the entire process on the platform: adding suppliers, sending collection requests, and reviewing completed responses. Check it out at the top of this blog post.
Where this fits
The CSRD's value chain provisions mean that large companies are now accountable for their suppliers' sustainability performance, not just their own. At the same time, SMEs are being assessed on sustainability data in contexts that have nothing to do with CSRD: customer questionnaires, bank financing, public tenders.
Supplier Assessment sits at that intersection. If you are a larger company that needs to collect supplier data for CSRD reporting, it removes most of the manual work involved. If you are an SME on the receiving end of those requests, it gives you a clean way to respond, and the answers you provide can serve as the starting point for your own sustainability documentation.
The first service is live. Get started here →
Sources: EFRAG, Voluntary Standard for non-listed SMEs (VSME), published 2024. // European Commission, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), Directive 2022/2464/EU. // European Commission, 2023 SME Annual Report.
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