A chemical-industry customer has asked you to complete a Together for Sustainability (TfS) assessment. Before preparing, establish which of the two TfS instruments you have been invited into: the desk-based assessment, which is the EcoVadis questionnaire, or the on-site audit.
| First question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| What is TfS? | A chemical-industry initiative whose members share one supplier assessment or audit instead of each running their own. |
| Is the assessment a separate questionnaire? | No. The TfS Assessment is the EcoVadis assessment, shared with TfS members through the EcoVadis platform. |
| I already have an EcoVadis rating. | Ask your customer about sharing the existing scorecard into TfS before starting again. |
| What is the audit? | An on-site audit by an accredited firm against a checklist of roughly 120 requirements. |
| How long does a result last? | A fresh assessment is required within three years of scorecard publication; audit results are valid for up to three years. |
Initiative details and links checked 14 July 2026. TfS revises membership, requirements, and checklists over time; confirm the current position at tfs-initiative.com.
What TfS is
Together for Sustainability was founded in 2011 by six chemical companies — BASF, Bayer, Evonik, Henkel, LANXESS, and Solvay — to assess and improve sustainability across chemical supply chains. As of April 2026 it has 63 member companies. A supplier to the chemical industry is likely to have more than one TfS member among its customers.
The operating principle: "an audit for one is an audit for all." One TfS assessment or audit serves every TfS member you supply. For a supplier, that is the benefit: assess once, share with many.
The two instruments
TfS Assessment: desk-based, on EcoVadis
TfS uses EcoVadis as its assessment partner rather than running its own questionnaire. You complete the EcoVadis questionnaire and upload evidence; EcoVadis analysts score you across Environment, Labor and Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement; the scorecard is shared with TfS member companies through the EcoVadis platform (EcoVadis explains the arrangement).
Everything in the EcoVadis supplier guide applies: the same policy, actions, results logic; the same evidence expectations; the same scoring. The questionnaire response guide works through it section by section, and the free EcoVadis readiness check previews where a TfS Assessment would find you strong or thin.
TfS requires a fresh assessment no later than three years after the scorecard is published. Customers may ask sooner; many suppliers reassess annually to show improvement.
If you hold a current EcoVadis rating, do not start from scratch. Ask the customer about sharing the existing scorecard into TfS; that is what the shared platform is for.
TfS Audit: on site
The TfS Audit is conducted at your facility by independent, accredited audit firms against the TfS audit checklist — roughly 120 requirements across management, environment, health and safety, labor and human rights, and governance. The auditor checks that documented systems operate in practice: process safety, chemical storage and handling, working conditions on the floor.
Your customer, a TfS member, initiates the audit. You agree in writing to results being shared with other members. Results go onto the TfS platform, valid for up to three years. Findings come with a corrective action process; an imperfect audit is a to-do list with a deadline, not a failure.
The audit track is used where site-level assurance is needed — typical for chemical manufacturing sites and higher-risk operations. If it is unclear which instrument applies, ask the customer. The answer changes what you prepare.
What assessors expect
For the assessment, the same evidence base as any EcoVadis submission:
- Policies — environmental, health and safety, ethics and 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 in scope
- Health and safety — process safety, incident data, training records; weighted heavily for chemical operations
- Certificates — ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 9001, Responsible Care where held
- Governance and procurement — how you assess your own suppliers; a supplier code of conduct
The site audit verifies the same ground physically: management systems, environment, health and safety, labor and human rights, and governance, checked against what the auditor sees at the facility.
If emissions figures are missing, the free carbon calculator produces them from energy and fuel records.
TfS in the wider chemical picture
TfS is one of several things chemical customers ask for. REACH obligations, customer-specific questionnaires, and other platforms — IntegrityNext is common in the sector — arrive alongside it. This guide covers the TfS mechanism only.
Getting the value of "assess once, share with many"
- Do the first assessment thoroughly. A strong, well-evidenced result is shared across every TfS-member customer. A weak one is shared just as widely.
- Plan around the three-year cycles. Put the renewal date in the calendar when the result lands. Start gathering evidence months before it lapses.
- Reuse across schemes. The same policies and data feed EcoVadis, IntegrityNext, and customer questionnaires. A response system turns one evidence base into answers for all of them.
What not to do
- Do not invent chemical or emissions data. Assessors and auditors verify, and safety data in a chemical context is scrutinized. "Not yet measured" is recoverable. A fabricated figure is not.
- Do not write paper policies to score. A real, followed process beats a copied document. At a site audit, the gap between paper and practice is what the auditor is there to find.
- Do not leave Sustainable Procurement blank. It is an easy theme to skip and an easy place to gain points.
- Do not repeat work. A current EcoVadis rating may be shareable into TfS.
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, shared with the initiative's 63 member companies. Prepare the EcoVadis evidence base, watch the three-year cycles, and let one credible result serve every chemical-industry buyer.