Why Is EcoVadis Crawling My Website? Understanding DocScan

Overview

If you have received a notification that EcoVadis' automated bot (EcoVadisSustainabilityBot) has visited your website, this article explains what it is, why it happens, and what it means for your company.

What is DocScan?

DocScan is an EcoVadis product, powered by our web crawler EcoVadisSustainabilityBot, that automatically visits companies' websites, provided by their customers, to identify publicly available sustainability documents, such as: 

  • Certificates (e.g., ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 9001, SA8000, EMAS)

  • Sustainability reports

  • Policies such as Codes of Conduct, Human Rights Statements, or Supplier Codes of Conduct

DocScan visits publicly accessible pages on your website and looks for documents that you have already chosen to make public. It does not access any private, password-protected, or restricted areas of your site. It respects, at all times, robot.txt files. 

Why is EcoVadis doing this?

EcoVadis assesses companies' sustainability performance of global supply chains. Thousands of buyers - including large multinationals - use EcoVadis to understand and manage the sustainability risks in their supplier networks, in line with regulatory requirements such as those within the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) or the German Supply Chain Act (LkSG).

DocScan is part of EcoVadis IQ Plus, a risk screening tool used by these buyers to map sustainability risks in their supply base and prioritize follow up actions. The factor that determines a company's IQ Plus risk score is the Scan Risk. It is a measure of how much publicly available evidence exists that a company actively manages sustainability topics.

When relevant sustainability documents are found on your website, EcoVadis uses their existence as evidence that your company is actively managing material sustainability issues - which decreases your risk level in the eyes of your trading partners.

What's in it for your company?

By making your sustainability documents publicly available on your website, you:

  • Reduce your risk classification in EcoVadis IQ Plus, which buyers use to prioritize supplier engagement

  • Reduce the need for manual questionnaires - your trading partners may require fewer sustainability assessments from you if your documents are already visible

  • Proactively demonstrate transparency -  a sign of good governance and professional reputation

  • Help your trading partners meet their own compliance requirements (e.g., supply chain due diligence laws) more efficiently

How does this fit standard web practice?

DocScan retrieves only publicly available information. EcoVadis operates in compliance with standard web practices and respects robots.txt directives. DocScan operates similarly to how search engines work.

EcoVadis does not notify companies in advance before visiting their website. This is standard practice for ESG risk screening tools, where the goal is objective, large-scale supply chain mapping rather than ratings that require a company to actively participate in the process.

Still have questions?

If you have any questions about DocScan or EcoVadis' website crawling, please reach out to us at  sustainabilitybot@ecovadis.com and we’ll get back to you within 5 business days.

Want to learn more?