Assessing a one-person business

This article offers guidance about assessing trading partners categorized as one-person businesses: who is eligible, and the recommendations for the requesting companies.

Who are one-person trading partners?

They are businesses run by one person, usually referred to as a sole proprietor, one-person company, freelancer, or self-employed.

Only trading partners operating as a legal entity are eligible for the rating. EcoVadis provides ratings of a sustainability management system, which is a tool for organizations and not for individuals. As such, freelancers or self-employed natural persons without legal entities are not eligible. One-person business with a legal entity is eligible for the rating, although it is not recommended (see the next section).

EcoVadis offers ratings for a group of entities, a single entity, or a site of all sizes.

For other specific ineligible cases, please learn more about scope of assessments.

Recommendation regarding the invitation of one-person trading partners

In most cases, we recommend not to invite one-person companies to the sustainability rating. As EcoVadis rating methodology aims to assess management systems for organizations based on the supporting documents, there may be certain areas that one-person companies find challenging in the rating.

EcoVadis suggests continuing to use our Sustainability Ratings solution to rate companies with 2–25 employees. These companies are classified as extra-small (XS), and we have a specific methodology designed for them. In 2023, EcoVadis improved its XS methodology to provide better support to these companies throughout their sustainability journey. You can find a dedicated Guide to XS companies.