Wallenius Wilhelmsen receives gold rating from EcoVadis with improved sustainability management systems
Wallenius Wilhelmsen has received its highest rating from EcoVadis since it started participating in 2020. “This new rating recognizes the efforts we’ve made to further improve our sustainability management systems, which we believe is essential and especially with additional reporting and compliance requirements on the horizon,” says Anette Rønnov – Chief Sustainability Officer.
EcoVadis is one of the world’s largest providers of business sustainability ratings, intelligence and collaborative performance improvement tools for global supply chains. They use a questionnaire process to evaluate management systems, and provide easy-to-use and actionable sustainability scorecards with detailed insight into environmental, social and ethical risks across more than 220 purchasing categories and 180 countries.
Three years of continuous improvement
Three areas played a significant role in Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s rating increase: the implementation of new and more comprehensive policies around the environment, labor & human rights, and procurement; obtaining additional ISO certifications, and publishing additional ESG metrics.
The new policies now include many best practices such as identifying relevant ESG topics, risks and opportunities as well as including clear objectives.
81 percent of our logistics sites are now certified to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for managing our environmental performance, and our occupational health & safety performance.
Some of the additional ESG metrics published included greenhouse gas (GHG) data from our operations, as well as details on how Wallenius Wilhelmsen works with strategic suppliers.
“These standards and processes play an important role in providing the foundation for our emission-reduction targets” says Jonathan Spampinato – Senior Manager Sustainability – who leads Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s engagements with ESG rankers and raters like EcoVadis.
How the ratings compare
- Overall Score - Top 3 percent of all companies rated EcoVadis in the Sea and coastal water transport industry
- Environment - Top 2 percent of all companies rated EcoVadis in the Sea and coastal water transport industry
- Labor & Human Rights - Top 1 percent of all companies rated EcoVadis in the Sea and coastal water transport industry
- Sustainability Procurement - Top 26 percent of all companies rated EcoVadis in the Sea and coastal water transport industry
Staying ahead of the curve
What started out as a request from some customers and investors, participating in EcoVadis allows us to measure how well we have integrated the principles of sustainability into our policies and management systems.
“Rather than just looking at past sustainability performance, or specific data points, these ratings are more indicative on how well-positioned we are for future success,” says Rønnov.
EcoVadis’ recommendations and requirements also allow Wallenius Wilhelmsen to be prepared for and be compliant with requirements that will soon be mandatory.
"For example, we prioritized disclosing more information about career development and training , how we tie employee compensation to the company’s sustainability performance, and the governance processes for the most important sustainability topics. Now, two year later, the EU has made these disclosures mandatory for us and we are already prepared ,” says Spampinato.
