How to Achieve EcoVadis Gold: A Realistic Look at All Four Medals
There is a simpler answer to that question and a more honest one. The simpler answer is: by ranking among the top 5% of all companies assessed by EcoVadis over the previous twelve months. The more honest answer takes a bit longer, because Gold is one of four medals and two badges that EcoVadis awards, and the question of which one is the right target for a given company often matters more than the question of how to reach the next one up.
I have supported over 200 EcoVadis submissions since 2017. Across that work, one of the more uncomfortable truths I share with new clients is that there is no fixed recipe for any specific medal. Two companies with similar industries, similar revenue and apparently similar sustainability programmes can land on different sides of a medal line. Some of that comes down to evidence quality. Some of it comes down to how the methodology weights specific criteria in your sector that year. Some of it, honestly, is not fully transparent even to those of us who work with EcoVadis full time.
What I can do is walk you through how the recognition tiers are structured, what kind of programme tends to sit behind each one, and why Gold is not always the right target to aim for.
What recognitions does EcoVadis actually award?
EcoVadis recognises performance through six tiers: four medals and two badges. The medals are percentile-based, the badges are score-based, and the structure has been stable since the 2024 methodology update.
EcoVadis medals are awarded based on the percentile rank of a company which is calculated at the time of scorecard publication. It compares a company's performance with all companies assessed by EcoVadis over the previous 12 months across all industries worldwide, not within a specific sector. (Source: EcoVadis)
The four medals, from entry-level upward:
Bronze recognises companies in the top 35% of those assessed
Silver recognises the top 15%
Gold recognises the top 5%
Platinum recognises the top 1%
Below the medal range, two badges exist for companies that have not yet reached Bronze but are showing signal worth acknowledging:
Committed Badge: A minimum score of 45, representing 'Good' performance in the EcoVadis methodology EcoVadis
Fast Mover Badge: A score between 34-44 with a minimum 6-point improvement compared to the previous assessment in an 18-month period EcoVadis
And below that, there are companies that submit, receive a scorecard, and walk away with neither a medal nor a badge. An earned medal or badge does not mean that a company has no room for improvement, and the inverse is also true: not earning one does not mean the submission was a failure. It means the company is at the beginning of a journey that, in my experience, takes most organisations between two and four assessment cycles to climb meaningfully. (Source: EcoVadis)
What does each tier actually represent?
This is the part that does not get talked about enough. The medal you receive is shorthand for where your sustainability management system sits relative to the global cohort, but it does not by itself tell you what kind of programme you have.
No medal or badge usually means the questionnaire is incomplete, evidence is missing or stale, or the company has policies on paper without supporting actions or results. It is not a verdict on the company's intentions. It is a verdict on the file as submitted.
Committed or Fast Mover badge signals that something real is being built but is not yet mature enough for Bronze. I see this often with companies that submit for the first time without external support, and then come back the following cycle with a much stronger scorecard once they understand what the methodology is actually looking at.
Bronze is the genuine entry into recognised performance. A Bronze company usually has policies in place across most of the four themes, has started collecting evidence of action, and has begun reporting on results in at least one or two areas.
Silver indicates a programme that is no longer in the start-up phase. Policies are joined up, action is documented across most themes, and reporting has usually been running for two or more years.
Gold indicates a mature management system. Coverage across all four themes is solid, evidence is current, quantitative targets exist with visible progress, and the procurement and ethics functions are formalised rather than ad hoc.
Platinum indicates that sustainability is structurally embedded rather than managed alongside the day job. Reporting follows recognised standards like GRI, ESRS or SASB, governance bodies have documented outcomes, supplier requirements are written into contracts with measured uptake, and the work has been running consistently for three years or longer.
The descriptions are necessarily broad, because what counts as "solid coverage" or "documented outcomes" varies by company size, industry and the criteria EcoVadis activates for a given assessment.
Is EcoVadis Gold a good result?
It depends on what you are comparing it to.
Compared to the median assessed company, Gold is a strong result. It places you in the top 5% globally, and it is materially harder to reach than Bronze or Silver. The jump from Silver to Gold is usually larger than the jump from Bronze to Silver, both in score terms and in the programme depth required.
Compared to what your customers are increasingly asking for, the answer is less clear-cut. A growing number of buyers, particularly in pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods and luxury, are now asking suppliers for Platinum specifically, or for "top 1%" performance without naming the medal. In those contexts, Gold is still a respectable result, but it is no longer the ceiling that closes the conversation.
I work with companies across that whole range. Some of them are targeting Bronze on a first submission, which is the right answer for where their programme is. Others are at Silver and considering whether the work to reach Gold is also most of the work to reach Platinum, which it sometimes is. And a significant share of the companies I have supported in recent years end up at Platinum rather than Gold, which is part of why our average client score in 2025 was 85. That is not because Platinum has become easier. It is because the companies that come to me have usually already attempted one or two submissions and are looking to move from solid to exceptional, rather than from nothing to something.
“Kemi’s average client score in 2025 was 85 out of 100. That is within the Platinum range, and it reflects the mix of clients I tend to work with: companies that are already past their first submission and are looking to move from solid to exceptional.”
Why might Gold be the right target, or the wrong one?
Gold is the right target when:
Your company already holds Silver and is on its second or third submission
You have ISO 14001 across most operations and a procurement function that has begun formalising supplier requirements
Your customers are asking for "a medal" rather than specifically for Platinum or top-1% performance
You have not yet built three full years of audited or standards-aligned reporting
Gold is worth questioning as the target when:
You are at Silver with a strong upward trajectory and your industry's leaders are mostly at Platinum
Your customers are increasingly specific about top-1% suppliers or Platinum-level performance
Your programme has matured significantly since your last submission, and you suspect the previous score under-represents where you actually are
You are already doing the work that Platinum requires but submitting it as if for a Gold scorecard, which I see more often than I would expect
The point is not that Platinum is automatically better. The point is that the medal you target should reflect where your programme is, where you want it to go, and what your stakeholders actually need from you.
What blocks the medals, regardless of overall score?
Two structural rules apply to every medal tier, Bronze through Platinum:
A company is not eligible for a medal if its theme score is below 30 in any of the four themes: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. Sustainable Procurement is the recurring sticking point in my experience, particularly for companies that have not yet formalised their supplier requirements.
A company cannot receive a medal if it scores 0 on at least one theme of the 360° Watch, or scores 25 or below on at least two themes. A serious media incident, conviction or public sanction can therefore block medal attribution even if the questionnaire score is excellent.
Beyond these two, the most common reasons I see submissions land below the targeted medal are stale evidence (documents older than eight years lose weight in the assessment), policies without supporting actions or results, and scope misalignment between the assessed entity and the evidence submitted.
How long does it take to move up a tier?
The honest answer is that it depends on what is already in place, and on how thoroughly the previous scorecard was understood.
Moving from no medal to Bronze, or from a badge to Bronze, usually takes one assessment cycle when the gap is mostly about evidence organisation, and two cycles when the underlying programme genuinely needs more depth. Bronze to Silver is often one cycle. Silver to Gold tends to take six to eighteen months and is typically targeted rather than broad: find the lowest-scoring sub-themes, deepen the evidence on reporting, convert intentions into measurable targets. Gold to Platinum is usually one to two further cycles, and the work is mostly about coverage breadth, quantitative target density, and reporting that an external auditor would be comfortable signing off on.
First-time submissions reaching Gold are uncommon but possible. It tends to happen when a company already holds ISO 14001 across most operations, publishes an annual sustainability report, and has an established procurement function with supplier requirements in place. Without those foundations, Bronze or Silver is the more likely first result, and that is genuinely fine.
That said, exceptions exist. I once supported a small luxury goods company through their very first submission and we reached Platinum straight away. It is rare, and it usually requires a smaller organisation where I can work closely with every relevant function, but it shows that the starting point matters less than how the submission is built.
What is worth doing before your next submission?
Regardless of the medal you are targeting, a few preparation steps tend to produce the highest return:
Run a gap analysis against the current methodology rather than against your previous scorecard. The methodology does evolve, and last cycle's strong performance can have gaps this time around. Identify the lowest-scoring theme and address it before anything else, because marginal improvement on a weak theme is worth more than further improvement on a strong one, and the 30-point minimum makes a weak theme a complete blocker. Refresh every document older than two years, particularly policies and external audit records. Add quantified targets wherever your current documentation only states intentions. And before you lock the submission, get a second pair of eyes on it. The same evidence can score quite differently depending on how it is contextualised and presented.