The S in ESG: what social criteria clients check
- David Owo
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
The environmental section of a supplier questionnaire is visible. Energy invoices have numbers on them. Waste contractor receipts exist. A kilowatt-hour figure is a kilowatt-hour figure. You find the document, you fill in the field, you move on.
The social section is different. It asks about your workforce. It asks about health and safety. It asks about pay equity and training. Most small business owners open that section, write a sentence or two, and assume the assessor will fill in the rest with goodwill.
They do not. Goodwill is not a scoring category.
In EcoVadis, a blank Labour and Human Rights section scores the same as a business with no employment policies. Buyers using a minimum score threshold of 45 remove suppliers who fall below it. That threshold appears across procurement programmes at General Motors, Nestlé, Johnson and Johnson, and hundreds of other multinationals. A blank social section does not signal neutrality. It signals absence.
Every field left blank in the social section of an ESG questionnaire reads as an absence of practice. The business with complete employment contracts, a health and safety policy, and basic training records scores significantly higher than one doing the same things but documenting none of them. The gap between those two businesses is not practice. It is paperwork. Paperwork that almost certainly already exists somewhere in the business.
Table of contents
Why the social section gets left incomplete
The environmental section has obvious anchors. Utility invoices are tangible. Waste contractor receipts are filed. The conversion from kilowatt-hours to carbon equivalents is a single calculation using a free government table.
The social section feels softer. Questions about employment conditions, training hours, and health and safety management do not connect as naturally to a document in a drawer. Most small business owners know their employees are treated well. Proving it in a structured format is a different skill from providing it.
The result is predictable. A 2025 analysis of EcoVadis scores across small service businesses found that the Labour and Human Rights theme produced the widest gap between actual practices and documented performance. Businesses that treat employees well and maintain safe workplaces routinely score lower than businesses with stronger documentation practices.
The social section is not harder to answer. It is less obvious which documents answer.
Readers encountering ESG for the first time will find this article on what ESG means for small businesses useful before working through the specifics of the social section below.
What social criteria do clients and banks check
The social section of most ESG questionnaires follows a consistent structure across platforms and frameworks. It covers four topic areas.
The VSME Basic Module covers social topics across three disclosures. Module B8 covers general workforce characteristics. Module B9 covers health and safety. Module B10 covers remuneration, collective bargaining, and training. Together, they define what small businesses need to prepare. They also define what large clients may legally request under the EU Omnibus value-chain cap, which has been in force since February 2026.
EcoVadis, used by over 150,000 companies globally to rate supply chain partners, groups social criteria under Labour and Human Rights. This theme covers working conditions, health and safety, human rights, and diversity. Scoring across each theme is based on policies, actions, and results rather than declarations alone. A signed policy without evidence of implementation receives a low score. Documented practice with supporting records scores well.
When clients or banks request the VSME Comprehensive Module rather than the Basic Module, three additional social disclosures apply. C5 covers additional workforce characteristics, including age and disability data. C6 covers human rights policies and processes across the value chain. C7 covers severe negative human rights incidents. These three disclosures apply only when a client or bank specifically requests Comprehensive Module reporting. The Basic Module covers the large majority of first-round supplier questionnaire requests.
Workforce and employment in social ESG assessments
VSME module B8 asks for a breakdown of your total workforce by contract type (permanent or fixed-term), gender, and country. It also asks for your employee turnover rate, though this applies to businesses with 50 or more employees. Most small businesses can complete B8 using information already held in their HR system or payroll records. Karomia's VSME guide documents the full specifications for data points B8, B9, and B10 for reference.
The specific questions assessors ask in this area include: Do all workers have written employment contracts? Are all employees on permanent or clearly defined fixed-term arrangements? What is your total headcount, and how many are full-time versus part-time?
These answers sit in your employment contract template and payroll system. They are not new data. They are existing data in the wrong format.
VSME module B10 covers remuneration and training. It asks whether all employees receive at least the applicable minimum wage. It also asks what percentage of the workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. And it asks for the average annual training hours per employee, broken down by gender. The gender pay gap disclosure applies to 150 employees, removing that requirement for most small businesses under VSME. The training hours figure applies across all sizes. Most small businesses run some form of onboarding or skills training and never formally record it. A simple annual log of training activity by employee closes this gap in one document.
Health and safety in ESG questionnaires
VSME module B9 asks for the number and rate of recordable work-related accidents and any fatalities from work-related injuries. For most office-based small businesses, the answer is zero accidents in the reporting period. Zero is a valid, documentable answer. But it requires a health and safety log to verify it.
EcoVadis assesses health and safety across workplace accident rates, occupational disease records, and frequency and severity rates. It also checks whether an occupational health and safety management system is in place. Not holding ISO 45001 does not disqualify a business, provided that a written health and safety policy and records of risk assessments are available as evidence.
Three documents satisfy health and safety requirements in both VSME and EcoVadis: a written health and safety policy signed by a named person, a basic workplace risk assessment, and an accident log that records incidents or confirms their absence. Every business with employees should maintain these documents for legal compliance. Very few small businesses organise them for ESG purposes.
Diversity and pay equity in social ESG scoring
Client questionnaires increasingly include questions on workplace diversity, non-discrimination, and equal opportunity. These questions appear in EcoVadis under Labour and Human Rights and in extended client questionnaires from large buyers in financial services, retail, and professional services.
The evidence that satisfies diversity questions at the SME level is straightforward. An equal opportunities statement in the employee handbook or employment contract template. A brief description of how hiring decisions are made and any diversity considerations in place.
Confirmation that pay is determined by role and performance rather than gender or background.
A business that cannot produce a one-paragraph equal opportunities statement leaves that section unanswered. Writing one takes under thirty minutes.
Supply chain social conduct
Both VSME and EcoVadis ask whether you apply social standards to your own suppliers. VSME module B9 includes this implicitly through its approach to value chain conduct. EcoVadis assesses it explicitly under Sustainable Procurement, which evaluates whether you integrate social and environmental criteria into your purchasing decisions.
The document that closes this gap is a supplier code of conduct. One page covering three topics: fair labour standards, no forced or child labour, and anti-bribery principles. This document satisfies both the social supply chain question and contributes to governance scoring. Greennect covers how to write this document as part of the five-step ESG data collection process.
Social evidence your business already holds
The table below maps every core social ESG data point to the documents that address it and to where those documents typically sit within a small business.
Social ESG data point | VSME module | What answers it | Where it exists |
Total employees by contract type and gender | B8 | Payroll summary or HR system export | Finance or HR files |
Employee turnover rate | B8 (50+ employees) | Leavers' log or payroll comparison | HR records |
Written employment contracts | B8 | Employment contract template | HR folder |
Minimum wage compliance | B10 | Payroll records confirming pay rates | Finance records |
Average training hours per employee | B10 | Annual training log by employee | HR or manager records |
Work-related accident rate | B9 | Accident log (zero incidents valid) | H+S file |
Health and safety policy | B9 | Signed written H+S policy | Office documentation |
Workplace risk assessment | B9 | Completed risk assessment form | H+S file |
Equal opportunities approach | Extended requests | Equal opportunities statement | Contract template or handbook |
Supply chain social standards | B9, B11 | Supplier code of conduct | Legal or procurement files |
Anti-bribery and data protection | B11 | Anti-bribery clause, GDPR policy | Contracts and legal folder |
Every item in the right column exists in almost every business with employees. Most of them sit in separate folders that have never been assembled into a single ESG evidence file. Greennect provides a downloadable evidence folder template built for small teams completing this assembly for the first time.
How EcoVadis scores social criteria for small businesses
EcoVadis tailors its questionnaire by company size, industry, and country. Office-based small businesses see fewer activated criteria than manufacturing companies. The social theme for a service business focuses on: health and safety management, employment conditions, diversity and non-discrimination, and supply chain conduct.
Within each area, EcoVadis uses a three-layer scoring structure. Policies account for around 25% of the score. Actions and implementation account for around 40%. Results, supported by data and third-party evidence, account for around 35%. Ditto's EcoVadis scoring guide explains how each layer is assessed and what counts as sufficient evidence at each level.
That split tells a small business exactly where to spend its time. A signed health and safety policy contributes 25% weight. A completed risk assessment demonstrating implementation contributes another 40%. An accident log showing zero incidents over 12 months, with supporting records, accounts for the remaining 35 per cent.
A small service business with a written H+S policy, one completed risk assessment, and a twelve-month accident log earns the full score for that criterion. The three documents take approximately two hours to assemble if they already exist, or four hours to write if they do not.
Most businesses already have them. The supplier questionnaire guide on the Greennect blog covers the full set of documents and how to attach each to the correct questionnaire field.
The social questions most small businesses leave blank
Three questions appear across almost every ESG questionnaire and supplier assessment. These three produce the most blank fields in responses from small businesses.“
"What is your employee turnover rate?"
Most small businesses do not track this formally. The calculation is straightforward: the number of employees who left during the year divided by the average headcount, multiplied by 100. Any business that runs payroll holds the data needed to calculate this. It requires one calculation and one recorded figure. Without it, the field goes blank.“
"Describe your approach to workplace health and safety."
A written H+S policy is the expected answer. Most small businesses have one because employment law requires it. Many cannot locate it when a questionnaire arrives. Filing it in the evidence folder, alongside the most recent risk assessment, closes this question permanently for future requests.“
"Do you apply social standards to your suppliers?"
This question requires a supplier code of conduct or, at a minimum, a description of the sustainability expectations you communicate to suppliers. Most small businesses communicate expectations informally or not at all. Writing a one-page supplier code of conduct that covers labour standards, environmental expectations, and anti-bribery principles takes approximately two hours and satisfies this question across every future questionnaire.
Building a complete social ESG evidence file
The practical sequence for closing social ESG gaps in a single week follows four steps.
Day one: assemble what already exists. Pull employment contract templates, payroll records confirming pay rates, and any existing H+S documentation into a single folder. Note what exists and what is missing.
Day two: close the health and safety gap. Write or locate a signed written H+S policy. Complete or confirm a current risk assessment. Create a simple accident log template and confirm the period with zero incidents if applicable.
Day three: close the training and remuneration gap. Build a simple annual training log that lists employees, completed training, and hours. Confirm in writing that all employees receive at least the applicable minimum wage. These two documents satisfy VSME B10 entirely for most small businesses.
Day four: write the missing policies. Draft an equal opportunities statement (two paragraphs) and a supplier code of conduct (one page). Add an anti-bribery clause to your standard contract template if one does not exist. Confirm your GDPR privacy policy is current and publicly accessible.
At the end of four days, the social section of any ESG questionnaire or VSME Basic Module report has complete evidence base. The same documents answer every future request without having to repeat the work.
The sustainability reporting guide for small businesses covers how social disclosure fits within the full VSME Basic Module structure and what the environmental and governance sections require alongside it. The supplier questionnaire guide covers the full submission process from evidence assembly to completed response.
A 20-minute introductory call with Greennect identifies which specific social disclosures apply to your business size and sector before any questionnaire arrives. No preparation required before that call.
FAQ: The S in ESG
What does the S in ESG mean for small businesses?
For small businesses, the S in ESG covers the social aspects of how you operate: employment conditions, health and safety, pay practices, workforce diversity, and how you manage social standards across your supply chain. In practice, it means documenting how you treat employees, how you handle workplace safety, and whether you expect the same standards from your own suppliers. Most small businesses already meet the underlying standards. The issue is documentation. Employment contracts, health and safety policies, training records, and payroll data together satisfy the social section of most ESG questionnaires.
Which documents satisfy the social section of a supplier questionnaire?
The core documents are: employment contract templates confirming written agreements and contract types, payroll records confirming minimum wage compliance, a signed health and safety policy, a completed workplace risk assessment, an accident log for the reporting period, a training log showing annual hours per employee, an equal opportunities statement, and a supplier code of conduct. Businesses with all eight documents can complete the social section of the VSME Basic Module disclosures and the EcoVadis Labour and Human Rights theme without additional preparation. Most businesses hold six of the eight. The two most commonly missing are the training log and the supplier code of conduct.
What does EcoVadis check in the Labour and Human Rights theme?
EcoVadis assesses labour practices, employee health and safety measures, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and human rights policies. A suite of policies is required at a minimum: a health and safety policy to prevent workplace accidents, an equal opportunity policy addressing non-discrimination and diversity, and a human rights policy covering broader labour standards. Supporting these with training records, risk assessments, and accident data provides the action and result layers that account for 75% of the theme score.
Does the VSME gender pay gap requirement apply to all small businesses?
No. The VSME Basic Module gender pay gap disclosure applies to businesses with 150 or more employees, reducing to 100 employees from June 2031. Small businesses below that threshold are not subject to this specific requirement under VSME reporting. The training hours breakdown by gender applies regardless of size. Most small businesses track training informally and can formalise it in a simple spreadsheet covering the reporting year.
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