TfS Assessment and Audit: A Chemical Supplier's Guide

A chemical-industry customer has asked you to complete a Together for Sustainability (TfS) assessment, and you want to know what it is and how much work it involves. The good news: if you've done — or heard of — EcoVadis, you already understand most of it. Here's how TfS works and how to approach it as a supplier.

What TfS is

Together for Sustainability (TfS) is a chemical-industry initiative founded in 2011 by six chemical companies — BASF, Bayer, Evonik, Henkel, LANXESS and Solvay — to assess and improve sustainability across chemical supply chains. It has grown steadily since: as of April 2026 it counts 63 member companies (tfs-initiative.com). If you supply the chemical industry, there's a good chance more than one of your customers is a member.

That matters because of the initiative's operating principle, which is simple and supplier-friendly: "an audit for one is an audit for all." You complete one TfS assessment or audit, and the result serves every TfS member you supply — instead of each of them running its own.

For a supplier, that's the headline benefit: assess once, share with many. A single, credible result satisfies multiple chemical-industry customers.

The two instruments: TfS Assessment and TfS Audit

TfS works through two complementary instruments. Which one you're facing depends on what your customer has requested.

TfS Assessment (desk-based, runs on EcoVadis)

The TfS Assessment is the EcoVadis assessment. TfS doesn't run its own questionnaire for this track — it uses EcoVadis as its assessment partner, and your scorecard is shared among TfS member companies via the EcoVadis platform (EcoVadis explains the arrangement here). You complete the EcoVadis questionnaire and upload evidence; EcoVadis analysts score you across the familiar themes — Environment, Labour & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement — and produce a scorecard.

Practically, this means everything in our EcoVadis supplier guide applies: the same policy → actions → results logic, the same evidence expectations, the same medal-style scoring. When you're ready to work through the questionnaire itself, the step-by-step response guide walks through it section by section. And because the methodology is shared, the free EcoVadis readiness check doubles as a useful preview of where a TfS Assessment would find you strong or thin.

One timing detail worth knowing: TfS requires a fresh assessment no later than three years after your scorecard is published. Your customers may ask sooner — many suppliers reassess annually to show improvement — but three years is the outer limit before the result stops counting.

If you already hold a current EcoVadis rating, don't start from scratch. Talk to your customer about sharing your existing scorecard into the TfS scheme — that's exactly what the shared platform is for.

TfS Audit (on-site)

The TfS Audit is an on-site audit conducted by independent, accredited audit firms against the TfS audit checklist — roughly 120 requirements covering management, environment, health & safety, labour & human rights, and governance. An auditor visits your facility and checks that your documented systems are real and operating: process safety in practice, chemical storage and handling, working conditions on the floor.

The flow works like this: your customer — a TfS member — initiates the audit, and you agree in writing to the results being shared with other TfS members. Audit results go onto the TfS platform, where they're valid for up to three years. Findings typically come with a corrective action process, so an imperfect audit isn't a failed one — it's a to-do list with a deadline.

The audit track is used where physical, site-level assurance is needed — typical for chemical manufacturing sites and higher-risk operations. If you're not sure which instrument applies to you, ask your customer which track you're being invited into. It's a normal question, and the answer changes what you prepare.

What TfS assessors expect from you

Because the assessment runs on EcoVadis, prepare the same evidence base you'd bring to any EcoVadis submission:

• Policies — environmental, health & safety, ethics/anti-corruption, human rights, supplier code of conduct.
• Environmental data — energy, emissions (Scope 1 and 2), water, waste, and — central for chemicals — hazardous substance and chemicals management, plus REACH relevance where you're in scope.
• Health & safety — process safety, incident data, training records; this weighs heavily for chemical operations.
• Certificates — ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 9001, Responsible Care where held.
• Governance & procurement — how you assess your own suppliers, a supplier code of conduct.

The site audit adds physical verification across the same ground: the checklist's requirements on management systems, environment, health & safety, labour and human rights, and governance are checked against what an auditor can actually see at your facility, not just what's written down.

If emissions figures are missing from that list, the free carbon calculator is a straightforward way to produce them from your energy and fuel records before the assessment starts.

TfS vs the broader chemical picture

TfS is one piece of what chemical customers ask for. You'll also encounter REACH obligations, customer-specific questionnaires, and sometimes other platforms alongside TfS — IntegrityNext is common in the chemical sector too. This guide stays focused on the TfS mechanism itself.

Getting the most from "assess once, share with many"

The shared-result model only pays off if you treat the assessment as an asset rather than a chore:

• Do the assessment thoroughly the first time. A strong, well-evidenced result is the one worth sharing across all your TfS-member customers. A weak one gets shared just as widely.
• Plan around the three-year cycles. Both the assessment and the audit run on a three-year clock — a fresh assessment is required no later than three years after scorecard publication, and audit results are valid for up to three years. Put the renewal date in your calendar the day the result lands, and start gathering evidence a few months before it lapses.
• Reuse across schemes. The same policies and data feed EcoVadis, IntegrityNext, and customer questionnaires. A reusable response system turns one evidence base into answers for all of them.

What not to do

• Don't invent chemical or emissions data. Assessors and auditors verify, and in a chemical context safety data especially is scrutinised. "Not yet measured" is recoverable; a fabricated figure is not.
• Don't create paper policies just to score. A real, followed process beats a copied document that collapses under a follow-up question — and at a site audit, the gap between paper and practice is exactly what the auditor is there to find.
• Don't ignore Sustainable Procurement. It's an easy theme to leave blank and an easy place to gain points.
• Don't repeat work you've already done. If you hold a current EcoVadis rating, check whether it can be shared into TfS before starting from scratch.

One caveat: TfS is a living initiative. The member list grows, and requirements and checklists are revised over time — the figures here are accurate as of mid-2026, but check tfs-initiative.com for the current membership and requirements before you plan around them.

The bottom line

TfS is the chemical industry's shared sustainability assessment — a desk-based EcoVadis scorecard, an on-site audit against a ~120-requirement checklist, or both — built so you can assess once and share the result with the initiative's 63 member companies. Prepare the same evidence base you'd bring to EcoVadis, keep an eye on the three-year cycles, and let one credible result do the work across your chemical-industry buyers.