Ecovadis: Companies Struggle To Track Sustainability Gains BY GREG KISHBAUGH Companies in tier 1 supply chains are making progress on climate goals and human rights inside their own operations. Move one tier deeper into the supply chain and that progress stalls. Four out of five (80 percent) companies rated by EcoVadis have no documented process for identifying or managing sustainability risks
Maquinarium, Heaford Mark 10-year Partnership Brazilian machinery distributor Maquinarium and UK-based flexographic prepress equip- ment manufacturer Heaford are celebrating 10 years of partnership, highlighted by the in- stallation of a Heaford FTS flexo plate mount- er at Maquinarium’s facility in São Caetano do Sul, Brazil.
The facility will serve as demo center for Heaford’s plate mounting technology and will give converters throughout Brazil the oppor- tunity to evaluate the FTS plate mounting sys- tem firsthand. The machine was also featured during the Flexo & Labels event held in São Paulo in May, where it was introduced to at- tendees from across the region. Founded in 2016, Maquinarium represents a portfolio of equipment suppliers serving the flexographic printing industry, with Hea- ford among its first manufacturing partners. According to the companies, the partnership has helped expand access to advanced flexo prepress technology for Brazilian label and package printers. The FTS is designed for narrow web and flexible packaging applications, using a pat- ented flat-table design that enables fast, re- peatable plate mounting while maintaining high accuracy. The system also offers up- gradeable features that allow converters to expand capabilities as production require- ments evolve.
within their own supply chains. Seventy-three percent have no Scope 3 upstream emissions reporting and 77 percent have no downstream tracking. Only 2 percent have an external grievance mechanism that workers deeper in the supply chain can actually use to flag human rights violations. There is also a transparency bottleneck, with fewer than 1 percent reporting granular, decision-grade sustainability data to buyer organizations. Rating Sustainability These figures come from the 10th edition of the EcoVadis Sustain- ability Ratings Index, drawn from nearly 200,000 scorecards of the more than 100,000 companies rated globally between 2021 and 2025. The data captures the performance of these — typically tier 1 suppliers within the network of 1,400+ leading multinationals and buyers using the EcoVadis platform. It highlights that, while rated companies are spending on sustainability,
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