Why UK SMEs Need a Better Way to Manage ESG Questionnaires

The questionnaires keep coming. Here is why — and what to do about it.

If you run or manage a UK SME, you have probably noticed something over the past two years: the sustainability questionnaires keep coming.

Your biggest customer sends one in January. The bank asks for ESG data in March. A new procurement portal requires certificates in June. And each one uses a different format, asks slightly different questions, and demands supporting evidence.

You are not imagining it. The volume really is increasing, and three forces are driving the surge.

Why the requests are growing

1. Large companies now have reporting obligations

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires large companies to report on their entire value chain — including suppliers. They cannot complete their own reports without data from you.

Even after the Omnibus simplification in early 2025, the core obligation remains: large companies need supply chain data, and SME suppliers are where that data lives.

2. Banks are assessing ESG risk

Financial institutions increasingly factor sustainability into lending and insurance decisions. When your bank asks for ESG data at loan renewal, they are following regulatory guidance from the Bank of England and PRA on climate-related financial risk. This is particularly common for facilities above £250,000.

3. Procurement is becoming a gatekeeper

More tender processes now include sustainability criteria. What used to be a nice-to-have section in a bid document is now a scored requirement. No ESG data, no shortlist.

EFRAG's own research confirms this, noting that SMEs face "multiple uncoordinated data requests" that represent a "significant cost of preparation."

The real problem is not sustainability — it is admin

Most UK SMEs are not opposed to sharing sustainability information. The frustration is operational:

• Every request uses a different format. One customer sends a spreadsheet with 50 questions. Another uses an online portal. The bank wants a PDF.
• The same data gets re-entered repeatedly. Your total energy consumption does not change because a different customer is asking.
• Evidence is scattered. The ISO 14001 certificate is in someone's email. The energy bill is on the shared drive. The waste report is in a filing cabinet.
• Consistency is hard to maintain. Did you tell Customer A you had 45 employees or 47? What figure did you give the bank?
• There is no institutional memory. When the person who usually handles these requests is on leave, nobody knows what was sent last year.

All five problems share a root cause: treating each questionnaire as an isolated event rather than part of an ongoing process.

What this costs in practice

Consider a typical manufacturing SME with 80 employees that receives 5–6 sustainability questionnaires per year.

Each questionnaire takes 1–3 days to complete properly. That is gathering data, finding documents, writing answers, getting internal sign-off, and submitting. At the conservative end, that is 5–10 working days per year dedicated to responding to sustainability data requests.

For a company without a dedicated sustainability person, that time comes from operations managers, finance directors, or office managers who have plenty of other work to do. At a loaded cost of £250–350 per day, you are looking at £1,500–3,500 per year — before you count the cost of inconsistent or rushed responses that damage your procurement score.

A better approach

The solution is not to hire more people or work longer hours. It is to build a system:

Centralise your facts. Maintain a single source of truth for your sustainability data. Your energy consumption, employee count, waste figures, policy details — all in one place, always current.

Organise your evidence. Keep certificates, policies, reports, and audit results in a single, accessible library with expiry tracking. When a document expires, you should know before a customer asks.

Build reusable responses. When you answer a question about your environmental policy, save that answer. The next customer asking the same question should take 30 seconds, not 30 minutes.

Track what you have sent. Know exactly what data you provided to which customer and when. This prevents inconsistencies and gives you an audit trail.

With a centralised vault of answers:

1. New questionnaires take minutes, not days — you match questions to existing facts rather than starting from scratch.
2. Evidence is always at hand — supporting documents are linked directly to answers, ready to attach.
3. Knowledge stays in the business — when people leave, the vault remains.
4. Quality improves — reviewed, approved answers are reused consistently, reducing errors.

Getting started

You do not need to overhaul your entire ESG strategy to see benefits. Start by capturing the answers and evidence you already have, organising them by category, and building from there.

Not sure where to begin? Our step-by-step guide to responding to supplier ESG questionnaires walks through the full process. If you need a framework for structuring your answers, see our ESG questionnaire response template.

AnswerVault was designed specifically for this purpose — helping UK SMEs build and manage a vault of reusable ESG content. But regardless of the tool you choose, the principle is the same: stop rewriting and start reusing.

Ready to try it? Start your free 14-day trial — no credit card required.