The supplier ESG response checklist
29 items, in the order we would actually do them. It starts by interrogating the request rather than answering it, because that is the stage that decides how much the rest costs. Nothing here establishes whether you meet any standard.
1. Establish what is actually being asked
- Get the questionnaire in writing, in full.Not a summary forwarded by a sales contact.
- Ask the buyer which framework it serves.BRSR value chain, CBAM, a corporate code of conduct, or a customer’s own template. They want different things.
- Ask what happens if you answer partially.Usually far less than the email implies. Ask before you spend.
- Ask when they need it and how often it repeats.
- Separate the governance questions from the emissions questions.Governance is much cheaper to close and is usually most of the form.
2. Assemble the numbers you already have
- Twelve months of electricity consumption, per site, from bills.
- Twelve months of fuel: diesel, LPG, furnace oil, vehicle fuel.
- Water drawn and discharged, if metered.
- Waste generated and how it was disposed of.
- Units produced or shipped over the same twelve months.This is the denominator that turns a total into an intensity.
- Compute energy per unit and, if you can, emissions per unit.
- Write the source and the date next to every figure.This one line is the difference between a cost and an asset.
3. Close the governance half
- Health and safety policy, current and signed.
- Anti-corruption and anti-bribery policy.
- Grievance redressal mechanism, with a route that reaches a person.
- Non-discrimination and equal opportunity policy.
- Supplier code of conduct, if you buy from others.
- Workforce numbers: permanent and contract, by gender.
- Turnover and training hours for the same period.
- Any incidents, and what was done about them.A blank here reads worse than an honest entry with a remedy attached.
4. If you export to the EU
- Establish whether your goods reach the EU, directly or as a component.Indirect exposure is the case people miss.
- Identify which products fall in scope: iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser and the other covered goods.
- Work out embedded emissions per tonne of product.
- Get them verified, because unverified figures do not help your importer.
- Send them to the importer before they need to fall back on default values.
5. Make it survive the second request
- Name one person who owns answering these.
- Keep the answer sheet, sourced and dated, somewhere findable.
- Diarise the data collection so next year is a review, not a project.
- Record what you could not answer, and why.A known gap with a date against it is a credible answer. Silence is not.