Worldfavor launches supplier Sustainability & Risk Profiles with benchmarks

Worldfavor launches the Sustainability & Risk Profile with Benchmarks: comprehensive supplier due diligence no longer has to stop at the few strategic suppliers you can afford to check. The profile shows what each supplier discloses on sustainability and risk-mitigating practices, based on public information, and compares it with relevant companies.

Supplier due diligence has long meant choosing between imperfect options: deep assessments for a small number of strategic suppliers, expensive third-party ratings, or broad risk estimates (where the sheer volume makes the first two approaches impractical). With Worldfavor’s new Sustainability & Risk Profile and Benchmarks, Worldfavor provides a comprehensive view of what each supplier discloses on sustainability and risk-mitigating practices, compares it with other companies, and helps buyers identify which suppliers need closer investigation.

Viewers of the Sustainability & Risk Profiles can see what data is documented, what is missing, and where a supplier stands compared with a reference group. Both in their own operations and further down their supply chain. The result is not only a score or data point, but it's also a clear, comparable view of where to focus attention and what to act on.

For Worldfavor customers, profile data is aggregated across the entire supplier portfolio, contextualized with information such as spend, and presented in an easy-to-read format.

“Most of what a buyer needs to know about a supplier is already published somewhere. The question is whether anyone reads it. We analyze, assess, and show the evidence behind every claim. Due diligence no longer has to stop at the suppliers you can afford to check,”
Andreas Liljendahl, CEO of Worldfavor.

What large companies disclose, and what they don't

Rather than only collecting and presenting raw data, Worldfavor analyzes what each company discloses through sources such as official websites, sustainability reports and public filings, policies, codes of conduct and a wide range of certifications such as ISO 14001 and ISO 45001.

The data is assessed using a structured, expert-assured methodology and each company is assessed across 20 sustainability and risk topics, ranging from climate change and biodiversity to human rights, forced labor and corruption.

Assessments cover both suppliers’ own operations and their supply chains, with a source behind every data point. Risk signals from adverse media, sanctions, and politically exposed persons are also flagged in the profile.

Alongside the launch of the profile, Worldfavor has analyzed 1,762 companies and is comparing them on industry, country and region. The analysis offers a snapshot of large companies with revenue above EUR 1 billion across 60 countries, three-quarters of which are headquartered in Europe.

These are among the largest companies globally, and are assessed on what they disclose across sustainability and risk mitigation practices, highlighting differences across topics, industries and markets. Findings are based primarily on public disclosures and may not fully reflect companies’ actual practices. 

Country figures in the findings below are based on: United States 214 companies, United Kingdom 98, Sweden 82, Japan 59 and Poland 29. Only countries with at least 20 companies are reported.

What the data shows: forced labor and Sweden's blind spots

Disclosure on forced labor varies sharply by headquarters country. Companies based in the United Kingdom (75.9 out of 100), Japan (74.2) and the United States (73.8) publish the most on how they prevent forced labor, while companies in Poland publish the least (50.9), a gap of 25 points. Sweden ranks 12th of the 17 countries with at least 20 companies in the analysis (64.3). With the EU Forced Labour Regulation applying from December 2027, buyers have just over a year to understand suppliers in the markets where public disclosure is limited.

Sweden leads on climate, trails on most other topics

Sweden's reputation as a sustainability leader tells only part of the story. Of the 17 countries with at least 20 companies in the analysis, the 82 Swedish companies rank in the top five on just two of 20 topics: climate change and anti-corruption. On water and marine resources, Swedish companies rank last of the 17 countries, at 41.5 out of 100 against 70.9 for Japan, and they trail US-headquartered companies on 16 of the 20 topics. For Swedish buyers, the takeaway is that benchmarking only against Swedish companies can give a misleadingly comfortable picture.