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, self-employed, or one-person company.
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.
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.
Temporary recommendation regarding the invitation of one-person trading partners
In some cases, we may recommend not to invite one-person companies. We are reviewing our rating service to ensure that they are optimized for one-person entities. As EcoVadis rating methodology aims to assess management systems for organizations, there may be certain areas that one-person companies find challenging in the rating. This is why currently we are recommending not to invite them.
What can be expected in the meantime?
EcoVadis plans to update the status of this recommendation by the end of 2023. We will release a set of new questionnaires, supporting materials, and methodology for extra small companies (XS) in the same year. The renewed rating services aim to improve the methodology for XS companies, most of whom may just be starting to establish sustainability management systems while enhancing transparency. As a result, EcoVadis still suggests conducting XS assessments for companies with 2–25 employees.
Contact us directly if you have questions on this topic.
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