EcoVadis Gold Medal for ESS, as result of the 2022 sustainability achievements

We are proud to announce that European Spice Services has been awarded with an EcoVadis Gold Medal in recognition of its 2022 sustainability achievements. ESS is now ranked in the top 5% of companies assessed by EcoVadis, the leading business sustainability rating platform. In the category wholesale of food & beverages industry, the company reached the top 3%.

EcoVadis offers a standardized framework to monitor sustainability in global supply chains, by providing measurement benchmarks and ratings, based on international (sustainability) standards, and considering a company’s industry, size and geographic location.

Under this methodology, European Spice Services has been assessed on 21 sustainability issues grouped into 4 themes: Environment, Labour & Human rights, Ethics and Sustainable procurement.

The company members championing sustainability at corporate level, share their thoughts on this year’s performance results:

“Achieving the Ecovadis Gold ranking affirms our company’s commitment to improve our business practices, not only in relation to our quality products and supply chain solutions, but also the implementation of the necessary social and environmental actions within our company. This is the essence of the sustainability approach that we have been integrating in at different levels of our work, for the last 12 months.

With our sustainability strategy, we are preparing our company for the future, while we promote and roll out our (sustainability) vision to both our supply partners at origin, as well as, with our valued customers.

These results motivate our entire team to further expand our programs and to work further on concrete projects in China and other sourcing countries to help secure the future of our industry.

I want to express special appreciation to the hard work and dedication of Dannely Carvajal as our Sustainability Manager and also to Olivier Nonneman, our COO, to make this achievement happen”.

Raf Nonneman, European Spice Services owner & CEO.

“This year’s efforts to assess the emissions in scope 1 & 2 of the company, in combination with the product’s CO2 emissions have led to considerable progress in our sustainability reporting standards and the first step to reduce and offset the emissions towards our carbon neutrality goals.

Additionally, standards were established to record compliance to the newly integrated Supplier Code of Conduct and integrated policies. All of these progress points are published in the newly formatted company sustainability report

These actions in 2022 drove the company from a Silver to a Gold EcoVadis medal and is the reward for the efforts made by those involved. This stimulates us to do even more.

In 2023, we’ll further integrate the CO2 emissions calculations for all main products through an accredited platform, while establishing a first concrete sustainability project in China in cooperation with our partnering manufacturers. Further actions are taken by the management to reduce our scope 1 & 2 emissions, while reviewing possible reductions in scope 3 as well”

Olivier Nonneman, European & China Spice Services COO

“We understand sustainability as a mean to create more transparency and collaboration across our supply chains. This work requires strong commitment and transformation in the ways that we operate as a business, and how we relate to our downstream and upstream partners.

The EcoVadis assessment give us the opportunity to demonstrate the ongoing work to advance our policies, operations and actions around the four sustainability areas covered by this framework. Our 2022 results set the right basis to scale our work in the coming months’’

Dannely Carvajal, ESS & CSS Sustainability Manager

Curious about our rating? Find here an overview of our sustainability assessment by Ecovadis.

Our visit our Sustainability page for further information about our strategy towards 2030.


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