Asia-Pacific Makes Strongest Progress, Outperforming North America in Environmental Efforts and Catching Up on Responsible Sourcing
A new report from EcoVadis finds that businesses around the world are strengthening their efforts to improve environmental, social, and ethical performance across their operations and supply chains. The ninth annual Global Supply Chain Sustainability Risk Performance Index analyzed 89,000 companies, including nearly 50,000 rated in 2024 alone, and shows the number of sustainability ratings conducted globally has grown 167% over the past five years.
Asia-Pacific Makes the Most Progress in 2024
Asia-Pacific (APAC) stood out as making the strongest gains in 2024, with companies there increasing their average score by 3 points across all four sustainability themes (Environment, Labor Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement). APAC companies pulled ahead of North America on environmental performance and are rapidly closing the gap on sustainable procurement, a key driver of resilience and ROI.
While APAC still lags behind North America and Europe in areas like Ethics and Labor Human Rights, its rapid progress is reshaping the global landscape. For companies in North America and Europe to keep pace, their sustainability efforts need to translate into deeper, supplier-level action, especially in procurement.
A Global Shift Toward Action
These regional shifts are part of a broader global trend. More companies are not just assessing their sustainability risks, they're committed to making measurable progress over time, even as public discourse remains polarized. In fact, 27% of companies with multiple ratings are now classified as top performers, more than double the number from 2020. This shows that long-term efforts to improve business sustainability efforts are starting to deliver real progress.
Other key findings from the Index include:
- Sustainability ratings surge globally China overtakes the U.S. in ratings activity. Sustainability rating momentum accelerated across every region in 2024, signaling a global push toward supply chain transparency. China saw a 37% surge in ratings, narrowly passing the U.S. to become the second most active country after France. Africa the Middle East led regional growth with a 42% increase, followed by Europe at 33%.
- First-time assessments reveal risk blind spots. Over one-third of companies rated for the first time in 2024 scored in the high to medium risk ranges (below 45 on the EcoVadis scoring scale), highlighting weaknesses in managing operational and supply chain risks. The challenge is even more acute outside Europe: for example, 45% of first-time rated companies in the U.S. and 62% in China fell into these risk ranges in 2024 (vs. only 12% in the UK).
- Consistency drives improvement. Among companies rated more than once, 86% scored above the risk threshold (a score of 45 or higher), showing that regular assessment helps reduce risk and build stronger sustainability practices.
- Responsible sourcing is slowly improving. Companies made the most progress in Sustainable Procurement how they choose and work with suppliers but it's still the weakest area overall. 60% of all rated companies (and 75% of first-timers) still fall into the higher-risk category.
EcoVadis Ratings assess the quality of a company's sustainability management system through its policies, actions and results. The average EcoVadis score rose to 53.4 in 2024, placing the typical rated company in the "Good" range for sustainability performance.
The Index complements findings in the EcoVadis Business Sustainability Outlook, which found that 87% of U.S. executives have maintained or increased sustainability investments in 2025.
"In a noisy political environment, supply chain performance tells a clearer story," said Sylvain Guyoton, chief rating officer at EcoVadis. "The Index takes that sentiment one step further, offering evidence that supply chain partners are following through. Companies that stay committed to business sustainability efforts are reaping the benefits risk reduction, resilience, supply chain performance, cost savings and growth and setting the pace for the rest of the market."
Read the full Global Supply Chain Sustainability Risk Performance Index 2025 report here for details on risk and performance breakdowns across regions, industries, and countries, with deep dives into the four EcoVadis assessment themes: Environment, Labor Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. You can also create custom views of specific sectors, geographies, and themes in the Index Online.
ABOUT ECOVADIS
EcoVadis is a purpose-driven company dedicated to embedding sustainability intelligence into every business decision worldwide. With global, trusted and actionable ratings, businesses of all sizes rely on EcoVadis' detailed insights to comply with ESG regulations, reduce GHG emissions, and improve the sustainability performance of their business and value chain across 250 industries in 185 countries. Leaders like Johnson Johnson, L'Oréal, Unilever, Bridgestone, BASF and JPMorgan are among 150,000+ businesses that use EcoVadis ratings, risk, and carbon management tools and e-learning platform to accelerate their journey toward resilience, sustainable growth and positive impact worldwide.
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