How companies can organise supplier sustainability using the VS

The sustainability challenge in supply chains

Companies are no longer managing only their own environmental or social impact. They increasingly need to understand what happens across their supply chains: supplier emissions, climate risks, social practices and governance policies.

The typical problem is not the lack of information, but that each supplier presents it in a different way. Different spreadsheets, different questionnaires and indicators that are difficult to compare.

When a company works with hundreds of suppliers, this situation can quickly become very difficult to manage.

The VS: a common language between companies and SMEs

The VS, the evolution of VSME (Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for SMEs) has been designed to help small and medium-sized enterprises report sustainability information in a structured and proportional way.

Its goal is to create a common ESG reporting format for SMEs, allowing clients, banks and investors to understand and compare sustainability information more easily.

What changes for companies with many suppliers

When sustainability information follows a common reporting structure, companies can compare indicators between suppliers and consolidate information across their value chains.

This makes it easier to identify shared risks, analyse aggregated emissions or monitor improvement plans across suppliers.

It also reduces administrative effort, since companies do not need to send different questionnaires every year.

An opportunity for SME suppliers

For many SMEs, sustainability appears when a client starts asking for information about emissions, policies or social indicators.

Using the VS allows SMEs to respond in a clear, structured and comparable way, something that is increasingly valued in complex supply chains.

In many sectors, being able to demonstrate how these topics are managed is becoming a real competitive advantage.

How VeryPyme helps

VeryPyme helps SMEs structure their ESG information in a simple way, organising evidence and generating comparable sustainability reports that can be shared with clients or financial institutions.

You can start with free access. When you want to issue the deliverables for a reporting year, there are two packs per reporting year: HUELLA (€50 + VAT) and COMPLETO (€199 + VAT). Start free

For companies with broad supplier networks, VeryPyme already includes a value-chain module integrated into the platform: email invitations to suppliers, a portfolio dashboard, a 360° view of each supplier with the information they have authorised to share, sponsorship of their access and an API for BI tools. We adapt it to each programme when needed. You can see how it works on the page about supplier sustainability management with VeryPyme.