Julia Moshkin, Head of Sustainability Innovation, EcoVadis

EcoVadis is a global provider of business sustainability ratings, intelligence and collaborative performance improvement tools for supply chains. Founded in 2007, EcoVadis has twelve global offices which enables the teams to be close to the businesses they rate wherever they are in the world. EcoVadis’ primary objective is to drive meaningful change in global supply chains with reliable sustainability ratings, enabling businesses to reduce risk, drive performance and improve economies, people’s lives and the planet we all depend on. EcoVadis’ platform creates opportunities for businesses to engage with their trading partners using the scorecard as a pathway to improvement. 

EcoVadis conducts annual rating of about 20,000 companies across 190 different purchasing categories which are evaluated along four key areas: environment, labor and human rights, business ethics, and sustainable procurement. Each company’s rating is customized based on the materiality of each topic to the company’s industry. For example, a manufacturer’s rating would highlight the importance of resource management and health and safety whereas an office-based company’s rating would focus on career management and recycling. 

The EcoVadis scorecard contains both quantitative and qualitative components. For each of the four key areas, a company is given an overall score between 0 and 100 which is supported by a detailed description of strengths, existing policies and actions, and suggested actions that could improve performance. For example, when looking at a company’s energy management system, a scorecard would highlight a company’s energy policy, the actions they’ve taken such as conducting audits, taking efficiency measures, and procuring renewables, and would also include suggestions for improvement such as developing key performance indicators and formal reporting of electricity consumption. 

An important benefit of partnering with EcoVadis is that once a company has been rated, they are able to share their scorecard with as many trade partners as they’d like. While some buyers still conduct their own auditing or assessments, this drastically reduces the amount of work suppliers have to do in order to demonstrate sustainability performance. 

What do you actually do all day? 

Six years ago, I joined EcoVadis as one of the first analysts in our New York office. Over the years my role has significantly evolved. Today I work on the intersection of EcoVadis product, expert analysis and marketing teams with a mandate of driving innovation of our product and methodology focusing on sustainability. My key responsibilities include engaging with industry experts and bringing the insight from such engagements back to EcoVadis, where my team uses it to power the evolution of our rating methodology and our digital product. 

On the ratings methodology side, I am responsible for engaging with industry associations, NGOs, and sustainability groups to raise awareness of our methodology and gather feedback. This helps my team identify opportunities evolution, while keeping our methodology up to speed with the emerging sustainability trends. 

On the product side, I lead a team responsible for identifying new sustainability needs of our customers and serving as an internal consultant to our product team on sustainability topics. That means I advise our technology team on high level sustainability market trends and I drive the implementation and deployment of new sustainability features. I get to be the internal voice of the sustainability industry and help our technical experts better understand our customer needs in light of the rapidly evolving sustainability market. For example, today my team is focused on helping our customers manage supply chain greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a complex topic that requires a great deal of technical knowledge as well as in-depth understanding of the market trends, underpinned by our customers’ unique needs. 

What are some of the key skills for success in this role? 

We’re always trying to pin down exactly what makes a perfect fit for our team. For me, one of the key elements to thrive at EcoVadis is natural curiosity. Focusing specifically on the analyst role, you need to be able to really understand the connections between the different elements of sustainability and to be curious about how they’re implemented and to be able to keep an eye on the big picture while diving deep into the details. 

From an educational perspective, we hire people with graduate degrees in everything from engineering to public policy and communications. It’s more about your natural passion for sustainability and inherent interest in the topic. 

What is your favorite part of your job? 

My favorite part of my job is envisioning the opportunities EcoVadis can create to help our customers along their sustainability journeys, and turning the vision into reality. Evolution of product features and rating methodology take time, commitment and collaboration across business units and even outside of the organization. I am truly lucky to be working with a team that is deeply motivated and committed to making a difference. Many of our peers in sustainability roles are the champions of this work at their companies. I have the opportunity to work together with an entire company of champions, and I could not have asked for a better source of motivation and empowerment than my own team. 

I also think it’s incredible that I get to spend my time collaborating with experts in the field and staying on the forefront of new and emerging issues. I love that I get to learn about the emerging sustainability trends, and use it as a force for innovation. 

What is the hardest part of your job? 

I’ve been in this field for ten years and it’s been wonderful watching as sustainability gradually becomes a mainstream business driver. However, our progress is nowhere near sufficient to avoid the climate disaster that scientists say we are rapidly heading towards. As a society we are far from “getting our act together” and joining forces to meaningfully respond to the imminent threat of climate change. It is not enough to have inspirational voices like Greta Thunberg, urging governments and businesses to make drastic cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions, we also need meaningful, collaborative and urgent action at global scale. The hardest part of my job is knowing that what we do as sustainability professionals has to mobilize global change, and failure is not an option. I want to be able to tell my children and their children that I chose their future, wellbeing and livelihood. This is why I have decided to dedicate my career to sustainability. 

What is your proudest professional achievement? 

I’ve had a lot of wonderful moments in my career, from growing as a professional, developing my analytical and communications skills to building cross functional teams and leading original research. For example, recently we compared the sustainability performance of companies that are UN Global Compact Signatories vs. Non-Signatories. We analyzed 30,000 companies and were able to isolate and identify a strong correlation between signatories and high sustainability performance. It’s one of the first analyses of performance for such a large data set of companies. We engaged the UN Global Compact through this research and it felt really good to be able to concretely demonstrate how impactful commitments are to a company’s performance. 

I have a feeling that a project I just started working on is going to be one of my proudest achievements. 2019 was a remarkable year for EcoVadis. It was a combination of EcoVadis securing one of the largest investments in the ESG space and a strong market pull towards climate action. We view supply chain as the single greatest lever for driving impact, and now we are working on a solution to help our customers better monitor, measure, and engage their supply chains on climate change mitigation. To that end my team is now exploring customer needs, market trends and potential partnership opportunities. It is really exciting to take on a new challenge, especially when it has the potential to drive climate action. We are just getting started, but there is an undeniable sense of urgency and responsibility in the work that we do. It’s a pivotal moment for us as a company. We recognize the power of collaboration and focusing on our strength as a platform we have an opportunity to make a meaningful change. 

What are the game changers in your world? 

I think explicit investor demand for supply chain transparency would really improve not just sustainability performance but performance in general. We’re starting to see more global regulation around supply chains; things like the UK Modern Slavery Act, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, and Australia’s Modern Slavery Act but I’d love to see deeper disclosure demand from the investors. 

Most of the demand for global supply chain information comes from NGOs, consumers or from regulatory requirements. Given that opaque supply chains pose major reputational risks for global brands, explicit investor demand for transparency could make a big difference. Interest in this area from investors is growing, but it needs to go further. The Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), chaired by Michal Bloomberg, is a coalition that’s doing great work on this issue and I’d love to see demand for disclosure and transparency expanding beyond climate risks. 

What was your path to this role? 

I have worked for the private sector, the public sector, and I’ve finally landed somewhere in between. The continuous thread in my career has always been a drive to maximize my positive impact. On the public side I worked for the Ontario Power Authority, helping to deploy renewable energy in the province. On the private side I helped companies to improve their performance internally. I love that I’m now doing a mix of everything. I’m still helping companies to improve their performance, but now as a part of a mission driven, fast growing team that requires me to constantly learn and explore new sustainability frontiers. 

What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this? 

First, start small to understand if this is the right area for you. Finding and thriving in a sustainability role can be really demanding and challenging. Start with an internship or temp position to make sure the culture and the role are a good fit. 

When you’re in an interview, remember that it’s a dialogue. You are not there to only showcase your skills, but also to determine for yourself that the company is a good fit for you. Following up on questions you’re asked is a good way to demonstrate your curiosity and engagement. 

You also should invest some time in learning the key players and reporting frameworks, make sure you’re familiar with CDP, SDGs, GRI, SASB, and the UN Global Compact. 

What are your favorite resources? 

The UN Global Compact Academy is a great tool. It has a wide range of online resources, webinars and white papers on sustainability topics. They really curate their content to make sure it’s focused on recent and pressing sustainability issues. 

I read Bloomberg Good Business every week. It provides a great overview of the ESG space with more of a focus on the financial side of things. 

I love listening to the MSCI ESG now podcast, it covers key ESG topics and provides interesting insight from MSCI experts. 

My favorite event of the year is our SUSTAIN conference, bringing together sustainability and procurement leaders from all over the world to share best practices and exchange ideas. We also sponsor a number of events and conferences, all of which are great places to go if you want to learn about supply chain sustainability. My close second must attend event of the year is the annual BSR conference. 

Who (or what) is your sustainability hero? 

For me to be a sustainability hero has to do with making a positive change in the world. As such, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of my role models and a true source of inspiration. She saw something deeply wrong in our society and devoted her entire life to correcting it. I’d love to see our generation tackle climate change with the same ferocity and determination as Justice Ginsburg tackles inequality. I wish we all had a little RBG in us to help drive us forward in the light of adversity as we launch to solve the most pressing challenge humanity has ever faced.