How to Include Sustainability and ESG in Your RFP

Sustainability has moved from the margins of procurement to the middle of it. Boards, regulators, investors, and customers increasingly expect organizations to evaluate their supply chain's environmental, social, and governance impact. For procurement teams, that means the RFP process needs to evolve.

The challenge isn't whether to include ESG in your RFPs. It's how to do it without turning the process into a checkbox exercise that produces greenwashing instead of genuine insight.

Here's a practical guide to building meaningful sustainability and ESG requirements into your RFP process.

Why ESG belongs in your RFP

Regulatory pressure is real

The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) now requires large companies to report on their value chain's sustainability impact, including vendors and suppliers. The SEC's climate disclosure rules, California's Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, and similar regulations worldwide are creating a web of reporting obligations that extend into procurement.

If your organization has reporting requirements, your vendors' ESG performance directly affects your compliance. The RFP is the right place to start gathering this data.

Scope 3 emissions are the biggest piece

For most organizations, Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from the value chain) represent 70% or more of their total carbon footprint. You can't meaningfully report on or reduce your carbon impact without understanding what your vendors contribute. Product-level carbon footprints are increasingly required in RFPs, particularly in manufacturing, logistics, and technology procurement.

Stakeholder expectations have shifted

Investors screen for ESG risk. Customers prefer sustainable suppliers. Employees care about their employer's values. These aren't abstract concerns. They affect revenue, recruitment, and reputation. Vendors who can demonstrate strong ESG practices are lower-risk partners across multiple dimensions.

What to include: environmental questions

Environmental criteria should go beyond asking whether a vendor "cares about sustainability." Ask for specifics that you can verify and compare.

Carbon and energy

Do you measure and report your greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3)? If yes, provide your most recent data and reporting framework (GHG Protocol, CDP, etc.).
What is your carbon reduction target, and what progress have you made toward it?
What percentage of your energy consumption comes from renewable sources?
Can you provide product-level or service-level carbon footprint data for the solution being proposed?

Environmental management

Do you hold any environmental certifications (ISO 14001, B Corp, EcoVadis, etc.)?
Describe your waste reduction and recycling programs.
How do you manage water usage and discharge in your operations?
For physical products: describe your approach to packaging sustainability and end-of-life disposal or recycling.

Supply chain environmental impact

Do you assess the environmental performance of your own suppliers?
Have you mapped the environmental risks in your supply chain?
What percentage of your suppliers have environmental certifications or reporting in place?

What to include: social questions

Social criteria cover labor practices, diversity, human rights, and community impact. These are areas where vendors often provide feel-good language without substance. Push for measurable data.

Labor practices

Describe your policies on fair wages, working hours, and workplace safety.
What is your employee turnover rate for the past three years?
Do you conduct third-party audits of labor conditions in your operations and supply chain?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

Provide your current workforce diversity metrics (gender, ethnicity) at the leadership and overall levels.
What specific programs or initiatives do you have to promote diversity in hiring and advancement?
Do you have supplier diversity targets or programs? If yes, what percentage of your procurement spend goes to diverse suppliers?

Human rights

Do you have a human rights policy that covers your operations and supply chain?
How do you identify and mitigate forced labor or child labor risks in your supply chain?
Describe your grievance mechanism for workers and affected communities.

Community impact

Describe your community engagement or social investment programs.
How do you measure the social impact of your operations on local communities?

What to include: governance questions

Governance criteria evaluate how a vendor manages ESG at the organizational level. Strong governance is what separates genuine ESG commitment from a page on the company website.

ESG governance structure

Who is responsible for ESG strategy at the executive level?
Does your board have oversight of ESG risks and performance?
How frequently do you report on ESG metrics internally and externally?

Ethics and compliance

Describe your anti-corruption and anti-bribery policies.
Do you have a whistleblower policy and mechanism? How many reports have been filed in the past two years?
How do you ensure ethical conduct in your supply chain?

Transparency and reporting

Do you publish a sustainability or ESG report? If yes, what framework do you follow (GRI, SASB, TCFD, ISSB)?
Have your ESG disclosures been independently assured or verified?
Are you willing to share raw ESG data for our reporting requirements?

How to weight ESG criteria

Adding ESG questions to your RFP is only useful if you weight them meaningfully. Here's how to approach it.

Determine your ESG materiality

Not all ESG factors matter equally for every procurement. A cloud hosting vendor's environmental impact (data center energy) is more material than their community engagement. A staffing vendor's labor practices are more material than their carbon footprint. Focus your weighting on what's most relevant to the specific procurement.

Set a minimum ESG weight

As a starting point, allocate 10% to 20% of your total RFP evaluation weight to ESG criteria. Organizations with aggressive sustainability commitments or regulatory obligations may go higher. The key is that ESG weight should be meaningful enough to differentiate vendors, not so small that it becomes irrelevant to the final ranking.

Use tiered scoring

Not all ESG responses deserve the same treatment:

5 (Exceptional): Vendor provides verified data, third-party certifications, measurable targets with progress, and exceeds your requirements.
4 (Strong): Vendor provides detailed data and evidence of active programs with clear metrics.
3 (Adequate): Vendor has policies in place and some data, but limited third-party verification or measurable targets.
2 (Weak): Vendor provides general statements about commitment without specific data or programs.
1 (Insufficient): Vendor does not address ESG or provides only marketing language.

The difference between a 2 and a 4 is evidence. Policies are easy. Data is harder. Verified data is hardest. Score accordingly.

Make specific criteria pass/fail

For certain ESG requirements, a weighted score isn't enough. If your organization requires vendors to have ISO 14001 certification or SOC 2 compliance, make those pass/fail. A vendor either has the certification or they don't. No amount of strong performance elsewhere should compensate for a missing mandatory certification.

Common mistakes to avoid

Asking questions you can't evaluate

If you ask about Scope 3 emissions but nobody on your evaluation team understands carbon accounting, the responses won't inform your decision. Only include ESG questions that your team can meaningfully assess, or bring in subject matter expertise for the evaluation.

Treating ESG as a tiebreaker

If ESG criteria carry 2% of your total weight, they'll never influence the outcome. Vendors will recognize this and put minimal effort into their ESG responses. If sustainability matters to your organization, the weighting should reflect that.

Accepting self-reported data without verification

Vendors will present their ESG performance in the best possible light. Look for third-party certifications, audited reports, and verified data. A vendor who claims carbon neutrality should be able to show the receipts: verified offsets, renewable energy certificates, or audited emissions data.

One-size-fits-all ESG requirements

A 10-person software company and a 10,000-person manufacturer have very different ESG profiles. Tailor your ESG questions to the vendor's size, industry, and the nature of the procurement. Requiring a small SaaS vendor to produce a GRI-aligned sustainability report is unreasonable. Asking them about their data center energy sources is fair.

Building ESG into your evaluation workflow

Integrating ESG criteria into your RFP doesn't require a separate process. It requires the right structure within your existing one:

Include ESG as a scored section alongside technical requirements, pricing, and vendor qualifications
Weight ESG criteria based on materiality to the specific procurement
Score ESG responses using the same framework you use for other sections
Compare vendors' ESG performance side by side to identify real differentiators versus marketing language

Strutter AI makes this straightforward. Add ESG questions to any section of your RFP, assign weights, and let AI score vendor responses alongside every other criterion. The comparison matrix shows ESG performance next to technical and commercial scores, so you can see the full picture in one view.

Try Strutter free at rfp.strutterai.com and build ESG into your next RFP without adding complexity to your process.