EcoVadis alternatives when you need emissions data, not an ESG score

Teams look past EcoVadis for one reason more than any other: they need a number in tonnes and a rating is not one. EcoVadis is a sustainability ratings provider, and a good one. It is not a carbon calculation engine, and its own methodology documentation is clear about that. DitchCarbon provides verified emissions data for over 2 million organisations, so procurement, sustainability and finance teams can measure and act on supply chain and portfolio emissions from one source.

It is usually not a choice between the two. A ratings programme and an emissions dataset answer different questions, and plenty of teams run both. That is worth settling before the shortlist, because it changes what you are shopping for.

Do you have to choose between EcoVadis and DitchCarbon?

No. They do different jobs. EcoVadis rates how well a supplier manages its greenhouse gas emissions and gives your procurement team a maturity signal to act on. DitchCarbon calculates what that supplier emits and gives your inventory a figure with a source behind it. Keep the ratings programme, and let the emissions layer sit underneath it.

EcoVadis takes the same view of where the calculation belongs. Its Carbon Data Network exists to move supplier data into carbon accounting platforms, and its own material names Sweep, Normative, Watershed and carbmee as the places that work gets done. DitchCarbon fits the procurement and sustainability tools you already run, so the data lands where the decisions are made.

Run on its own, DitchCarbon is the platform. Measure the organisations you buy from or invest in, engage them for better information, forecast and plan scenarios, then track performance against targets.

Why do teams look for an EcoVadis alternative?

Rarely because the ratings are poor. The triggers we hear most often on calls:

• The auditor asked for the Category 1 number and a scorecard came back. A medal and a 0 to 100 score cannot be summed into an inventory.
• Coverage stops at the suppliers who replied. The assessment is opt in, so the rest of the spend stays empty no matter how long you wait.
• Small suppliers are out of scope. EcoVadis rates companies with 25 or more employees, and a long tail sits below that line.
• Two platforms, two answers. The rating says Advanced, the inventory still runs on a sector average, and nobody can explain the gap to finance.
• Finance needs portfolio coverage, not a supplier programme. Financed emissions and PCAF data quality scoring are a different job.

Can an EcoVadis carbon rating be used as your Scope 3 Category 1 number?

No, and EcoVadis documents why in three separate places. The Carbon Rating assesses the adequacy and comprehensiveness of a company's greenhouse gas management system. Results classify a company into five performance levels, from Insufficient at 0 through Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced to Leader at 76 to 100. That scale measures maturity. There is no tCO2e in it, and no arithmetic converts a maturity score into a tonnage.

The tonnage is deliberately kept out of the score. Among the Carbon Rating's management indicators, the GHG Reporting indicator is the one that captures disclosed emissions data, and EcoVadis documents it as not scored. The consequence is worth stating plainly: a high emitting supplier with strong documentation rates well, and a low emitting supplier with no documentation rates as Insufficient. That is a sensible design for a management rating and a poor basis for an inventory.

EcoVadis routes the calculation onward rather than performing it. Its Scope 3 material positions the Carbon Action Manager as a way to refine emissions calculations and aggregate data for Scope 3, and the Carbon Data Network moves that data into carbon accounting platforms. The inventory is built there.

One step is easy to miss even when a supplier does report a figure. What you receive is that supplier's company-wide footprint. Category 1 needs the share attributable to what you bought, so an allocation by spend, volume or product still has to happen somewhere. EcoVadis does not do it, and neither does the supplier.

Which EcoVadis alternatives should be on your shortlist?

The shortlist splits by what you actually need back: a rating, collected supplier disclosures, or a calculated figure.

Table compiled August 2026 from each vendor's public documentation. Capabilities change, so check the current position with any vendor before a decision.

What happens to the suppliers who do not respond?

With a ratings platform, nothing happens. The EcoVadis Carbon Rating is solicited and opt in, a company can decline to be assessed, and the methodology states that it uses no estimations and no industry averages to fill an absence of data. Eligibility starts at 25 employees. Your coverage is therefore exactly the set of suppliers who completed an assessment, and the remainder of your Category 1 spend stays empty.

This is the practical difference between a rating and a dataset. DitchCarbon starts from what organisations have already disclosed publicly, so coverage exists before a single request goes out, and engagement becomes a way to improve a figure rather than to create one. A recent deployment reached about 60% of a large supplier base within 2 weeks, without a survey round. Where an organisation has disclosed nothing, the generic factor layer still closes the inventory, and every figure carries its source and change history so the parts still running on averages are visible rather than buried.

Which of these publish independent verification of their methodology?

Verification of a vendor's own calculation is not the same as an auditor assuring your inventory, and it is not the same as a security certification. Both of the others are common, and neither tells you whether the numbers are built correctly. Status as published by each vendor:

EcoVadis describes its methodology governance as internal: a methodology team separate from commercial functions, an internal steering committee, an annual internal review and a public consultation period for material changes. It also convenes an external expert committee that reviews the assessment process. Neither is independent verification, and EcoVadis publishes none.

DitchCarbon is the only specialist Scope 3 tool with third-party assurance of its calculation methodology, and was the first company to earn UL Solutions' Sustainability Information Calculator Verification, in June 2025. The full working, including every vendor checked and the evidence for each, is in our benchmark, Who's really verified? A reality check on carbon software assurance. The underlying documents are downloadable from the DitchCarbon trust centre.

Ask any vendor on your shortlist for the declaration itself, not a page that says audit-ready. Audit-ready without a named verifier and a named standard is marketing.

Which alternative fits procurement, sustainability and finance?

Procurement

Procurement needs a number per supplier inside the systems the team already runs, and a way to tell two suppliers in the same category apart. EcoVadis and Sedex rank behaviour and risk well. Assent and Sphera go deep at product level for manufacturers working from bills of materials. DitchCarbon starts with coverage on organisations that have never answered a survey, then supports engagement, scorecards and category-level target tracking on top of it.

Sustainability

Sustainability teams are judged on whether the inventory survives review, which means the question is whether each figure is auditable. Ask which vendor publishes a verification declaration you can read, whether every figure carries its source and change history, and how the platform shows what it does not know. A rating cannot answer any of the three for the emissions figure itself, because it is not measuring the figure.

Finance and investment

Ratings platforms are built around supplier programmes rather than portfolios, so for financed emissions the shortlist is different. DitchCarbon contributes company-level data on private and unlisted holdings, which is where PCAF data quality scores usually sit at DQ 4 and DQ 5 and where a company-specific figure moves the score. Portfolio, group, account and counterparty level tracking runs off the same layer.

What if you are the one being asked to complete an assessment?

Most companies reading a page like this are on both sides of the request. You are measuring your own suppliers, and your customers or investors are asking you for the same thing. If that is you, claiming your DitchCarbon profile lets you answer once and reuse it, including work you have already done for CDP or an EcoVadis assessment. It is free and self-serve. Claim your profile.

How many suppliers does EcoVadis actually hold carbon data on?

Harder to answer than it should be, because the figures EcoVadis publishes do not reconcile with each other and none of them carries a date. As published in August 2026, the Carbon Action Manager page describes a network of 48,000+ GHG reporters alongside a counter of 135,000+ carbon assessments. The Scope 3 solution page presents the same programme as 69,000+ assessed suppliers and 100,000+ carbon scorecards. A June 2026 announcement puts roughly 60,000 reporting organisations in the Carbon Data Network, and 175,000+ businesses using EcoVadis overall.

Some of that spread is definitional, and it is only fair to say so. An assessment is not a scorecard, a scorecard is not a supplier, and a company using EcoVadis is not a company reporting carbon. The difficulty is that the definitions are not published next to the numbers, so a buyer cannot tell which population any figure describes, or when it was counted. This is the same problem the verification question exposes from the other direction: a claim you cannot check is a claim you cannot rely on in front of an auditor.

Network size is the wrong question in any case. What decides whether a platform works for you is how many of the organisations on your own list it holds a figure for today, and no vendor can put that number on a marketing page.

How do you check coverage before you commit?

Run the test on your own list. Send a sample of the organisations you buy from or invest in and ask each shortlisted vendor the same three things: how many they hold a company-specific emissions figure for today, where each figure came from, and what happens to the rest. On a ratings platform the honest answer to the first is the number of your suppliers who have completed an assessment, which is usually a good deal smaller than the network.

DitchCarbon will show you what it already holds on your list, with the source and change history behind every figure. Numbers you can defend within 2 weeks.

Last reviewed August 2026.