About THESIS assessments
THESIS assessments are made up of sets of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that measure and quantify the social and environmental impacts of products in product supply chains. THESIS includes approximately 350+ product category level assessments, which cover about 90% of all products available to purchase in a retail store in-person or online.
Learn more about:
- What products are within scope for THESIS assessments? HERE
- Adding THESIS Assessments HERE
- How do I download PDF and excel versions of the product category assessments? HERE
- Sharing Assessments with Your Retailer Buyers HERE
Types of THESIS Assessments
- THESIS Start questionnaire
- Product category assessments
- THESIS retailer priority assessments
- Issue Specific Assessments
- THESIS Wrap-up questionnaire
What is THESIS start questionnaire?
THESIS start is a company-level assessment with issue-focused evaluations that can be used to assess action, transparency, and continuous improvement on the material sustainability issues for brands, manufacturers, and producers.
TSC created THESIS start using its science-based, multi-stakeholder, and full life-cycle development process and was created in direct response to requests from both TSC Member’s and THESIS users. TSC members and partners, including manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, service providers, NGOs, civil society organizations, governmental agencies, and academics, contributed valuable perspectives and expertise.
THESIS start includes 4 sections:
- Demographics & planning captures the organization's structure and sustainability strategy and planning.
- Issue-focused evaluation on climate: captures the organization's greenhouse gases emissions and targets.
Issue-focused evaluation on circularity captures the organization's targets and actions around circularity of products and sales packaging.
Issue-focused evaluation on nature captures the organization's commitments and targets around four areas: deforestation and land, biodiversity and ecosystems, water and affected communities.
You can find THESIS start when first logging into THESIS. It is available automatically on your THESIS account. Answer THESIS start based on information at a company level.
What is THESIS wrap up questionnaire?
THESIS wrap up is intended to be completed after submitting your product category assessments. It is optional, but highly encouraged to complete as uses this information to provide additional value to user analytics to THESIS retailers. Your responses also directly inform TSC's improvements to THESIS.
THESIS wrap up is available automatically on your THESIS account. Answer THESIS wrap up based on information at a company level.
Product Category assessments
Product Category assessments are self-selected
THESIS empowers you to self-select the assessments that are most appropriate for the products you sell to all your retail customers. Product category assessments are not available automatically on THESIS and are not assigned by your retailer buyers.
IMPORTANT: collect global data for your Product Category Assessments, including production activities for regions and for products for all of your retailer buyers.
You have two ways to select product category assessments:
- During the assessment selection hierarchy, you self-select and add assessments based on the products you sell.
- You can also add assessments from your dashboard at any point during the THESIS campaign.
You can use the "THESIS Assessment Selection Tool", available for download from our website, to confirm what products are covered by THESIS and to identify the right assessment(s) for the products you sell.
THESIS Retailer Priority Assessments
In THESIS, we want to highlight priority assessments for our THESIS retailers. These are assessments created because of direct requests from THESIS retailers and that retailers use to inform their initiatives and goals.
If you supply a farmed animal protein product and will be completing an animal protein product category assessment, it's important to ensure you're also completing the accompanying antibiotic assessment and animal welfare assessment.
If you supply produce and/or plants, it's important to ensure you're also completing the Pollinator Health assessment.
If your company supplies… |
Be sure to also complete these assessments in addition to your product category assessments... |
MeatAny fresh, cured, AND/OR processed meat (Beef, Broilers, Dairy, Eggs, Pork, AND/OR Turkey |
Antibiotics |
BeefAny fresh, cured, AND/OR processed |
Antibiotics + Beef cow-calf |
TurkeyAny fresh, cured, AND/OR processed |
Antibiotics + Animal Welfare - Turkey |
Farmed FishFarmed Basa or Swai; Farmed Cod; Farmed Salmon; Farmed Tilapia; Other Farmed Fish; Not including wild-caught fish and seafood assessments. |
Animal Welfare - Farmed Fish/Salmon |
Produce/PlantsNuts and seeds, vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, potted plants, AND/OR ornamentals |
Pollinator Health |
Issue Specific Assessments
These assessments are scientifically grounded and have undergone the same development process as our product category assessments. They are meant to enhance product category assessments and should be completed in addition to a relevant product category, if reccomended by TSC.
Examples of issue Specific Assessments available on THESIS includes:
• Company-level supplement
• Deforestation supplement
• Generic product
• Generic service
• Materials level assessments - Cotton products
• Materials level assessments - Cotton textiles
• Materials level assessments - Cotton-polyester blend textiles
• Materials level assessments - Glass products
• Materials level assessments - Nylon textiles
• Materials level assessments - Polyester textiles
• Materials level assessments - Rayon textiles
• Materials level assessments - Wooden furniture
• Packaging
• Transportation
THESIS Assessments FAQ
Do we share a separate assessment for each factory?
No. The KPIs are global in scope. You will aggregate any relevant data according to the products within the assessment scope.
How long does it take to complete assessments?
There are two components to the time needed to complete THESIS.
- Preparing for THESIS
- Logging into THESIS and completing the assessments.
Preparation for completing the assessments (meaning gathering data, data analytics, learning the content, etc.) will depend on the size of your organization, your commitment to providing exact information, the number of relevant assessments, your unique data environment, your resources available, and your level of expertise in the covered topics.
Depending on how much each organization understands the content and has the data you'll need available, it takes approximately 20 minutes to an hour to complete an assessment on the THESIS platform and submit it.