Earlier this month, we published an article about our progress with EcoVadis, focussing on how we turned a silver medal into a gold medal.
Whilst we are incredibly proud of this achievement, we are also acutely aware that K2 doesn’t exist as a siloed entity; we operate as part of an extensive supply chain and therefore share in the responsibility for the sustainability of this network.
So in this article, we turn the spotlight onto our partners, exploring the progress that they have made with EcoVadis over the past year.
In February 2022, K2 signed up with EcoVadis. Over the months that followed, we developed and then rolled out an EcoVadis onboarding programme for our partners. At the end of 2022, 36 of K2’s partners, which equated to 33.12% of our partner network, had signed up with EcoVadis. Their average EcoVadis score, a metric which reflects the quality of a company’s sustainability management system at the time of assessment, was 52.5 on a scale of 0 – 100, a score which fell within the Bronze medal percentile.
At the end of 2023, as a result of an onboarding campaign with K2’s Sustainability and Supply Chain Team, 65 of K2’s partners, which equated to 38.62% of our partner network, had signed up with EcoVadis. The average EcoVadis score in our network increased to 54.48: with this score, this is the equivalent to a bronze medal rating. What is more, of the 65 partners assessed in 2023, 22 (or 34%) of them improved upon their previous score, showing that they had succeeded in increasing the efficacy of their sustainability management system over the course of the year.
EcoVadis are a truly global operation. To date, they are active in over 180 countries, assessing over 125,000 organisations which span over 200 different industries. This global coverage was a key factor in K2’s selection of EcoVadis as a sustainability ratings provider: K2 is a truly global company with a partner network which spans 186 countries, and so we wanted to work with a ratings company which had a similar international presence. The geographical spread of the K2 partners who are currently signed up with EcoVadis reflects the international nature of our network: 35 of these partners are based in Europe and Central Asia, 13 are based in APAC, 10 are based in North America, 4 are based in South America, and 3 are based in the Middle East and Africa.
Over the past year, our partner network as a whole has made significant progress within the field of sustainability. As we move through 2024, K2 will continue to support each of our partners with their individual sustainability journey, offering guidance, sharing knowledge, and running communication/update webinars.
