The email usually arrives like this. A European customer you have supplied for years invites you to an assessment platform, or sends a message with a sixty-question spreadsheet attached. The deadline is three weeks away. Somewhere in the text is the phrase "as part of our supplier evaluation process".

Two reactions are common at this point. The first is to panic and answer most of the questions more favourably than the facts allow. The second is to set the file aside until someone who understands the subject can look at it. Both create problems later.

Why did this questionnaire arrive?

Your customer is not doing this out of goodwill or curiosity. They have their own reporting and supply chain due diligence obligations to meet, and part of the data they need sits with you.

The Omnibus I package, finalised in early 2026, narrowed the reporting scope in Europe — fewer companies are now directly obliged to report. But the large buyers that remain in scope are still requesting data from their suppliers, in many cases more systematically than before. A simplified regulation does not mean fewer requests reaching you.

Understanding this sets the tone of your response: this is a data request, not an exam. The aim is not a high score. It is accurate, consistent information.

First, identify what you have received

Four different requests are routinely confused with one another. Their preparation time and their risks are entirely different:

A platform assessment. Conducted through an independent platform, built around uploading policies and evidence, and producing a score at the end. What you upload matters far more than what you write. A claim without a supporting document does not become a score.

The customer's own questionnaire. Usually a spreadsheet with free-text answers. It is not scored, but it is read and it is filed. When the same questions come round next year, your answers will be compared.

A carbon data request. If your corporate footprint or the footprint of a specific product is requested, this is a calculation exercise, not a questionnaire item. Giving an estimate is the worst option available: when you are asked which methodology produced it, you will have no answer.

A code of conduct signature. A supplier code of conduct is not a sustainability questionnaire at all — it is a contractual commitment. Your legal team should read it. Some of the clauses you sign may carry audit rights and termination conditions.

Establish which of the four you are dealing with on day one. Everything that follows depends on it.

What to do in the first 48 hours

Appoint an owner. The questionnaire lands with sales, while most of the answers sit with production, human resources and finance. Unless one person takes responsibility for collecting them, the process stalls.

Sort the questions by source. List which question needs an answer from which department. Three or four departments is usually the full set.

Ask for an extension. Requesting one is not a sign of weakness, and it is usually granted. "We would like two more weeks to compile accurate data" is received far better than a form filled in at speed.

Ask which questions are mandatory. A significant part of most questionnaires is there to gather information and can be left blank. You cannot know this without asking your customer.

What to write when you cannot answer

If you do not have something, do not claim that you do. This answer is entirely acceptable:

"We do not currently have a formal policy on this. We are planning to develop one during 2027."

It will not earn you points, but it will not cost you anything either. Declare a policy that does not exist, however, and the gap surfaces the moment evidence is requested at the next assessment or a customer audit takes place. At that point it stops being a shortcoming and becomes a question of credibility — and that is what actually damages the commercial relationship.

Buyers do not expect their suppliers to be ready on every front. What they expect is that the information you give them is accurate, and that it improves consistently from one year to the next.

Where companies get stuck most often

Scope 1 and 2 emissions data. If it has never been calculated, a basic first estimate can be built from your electricity and fuel consumption rather than writing "data not available". The invoices are already in your finance records. Noting the methodology and the assumptions behind the figure matters as much as the figure itself.

Policy documents. An environmental policy, a human rights policy, a supplier code of conduct — these are requested routinely, and in most companies none of them has been written. They are documents of a few pages, and once prepared they are reused in every questionnaire that follows.

Workforce and health and safety data. Accident numbers, absence rates and training hours are usually recorded somewhere, but not compiled. A single session with your HR and OHS specialists is generally enough.

What to leave behind for next time

This will not be your last questionnaire. The same customer will ask again next year, and your other European customers will send similar requests. The questions overlap heavily.

So when the process is finished, gather your answers into a single file: the question, the answer you gave, the document or data behind it, and who prepared it. That file cuts the work to a third in the second year, and almost eliminates it in the third.

In summary

1. Identify which of the four request types you have received — the process differs for each.

2. Appoint a single owner, and ask for an extension if you need one.

3. Write "we do not" where you do not; an overstated answer comes back the following year.

4. Archive your answers in one reusable file.

Carry the gaps the questionnaire exposed into next year's business plan — that is where the real gain is.

If an ESG questionnaire has landed on your desk and you are not sure where to begin, get in touch — CHON supports companies through these processes.