If your company buys from Brazil, European rules have quietly moved your suppliers' paperwork onto your desk: due-diligence duties under CSDDD, value-chain reporting under CSRD, embedded-emissions data under CBAM, traceability under EUDR. The questionnaires you send come back — in Portuguese, late, incomparable, and impossible to grade from Munich or Milan.
Villanova ESG works the other end of that problem: at origin. We review your Brazilian suppliers' evidence where it lives — in the language it was written, against the operation it describes — and return it in the structure your procurement, compliance and audit teams can actually use.
This is advisory work. It is not an audit, certification, legal opinion, emissions verification or a guarantee of buyer acceptance — and every deliverable states that boundary.
What we do for buyers
Per-supplier evidence assessment
Each supplier graded against the published SEMM framework: what exists, what is missing, what would not survive your review — with owner, date, scope and source per record. Comparable across the whole supplier base.
Is not: an audit, an EcoVadis-style self-declared score, or a site certification.
Pilot cohort
Start with a small set of critical suppliers — enough to test the method against your framework before extending it across the base. Scope, cohort and calendar defined in the scoping conversation.
Supplier development path
Assessment without a path breeds resentment. Each graded supplier receives a prioritised gap register in Portuguese — so your supply base improves instead of churning.
Why at origin — and why us
- Language and ground truth. Brazilian evidence is written in Portuguese, referenced to Brazilian instruments (MTR, CDF, licences). Reading it accurately is the work — translation alone loses the scope and the caveats.
- A published yardstick. The methodology is public, citable and deposited with DOIs — your committees can read exactly how a grade was produced. No black-box scoring.
- Operational lineage. The founder also leads Ecobraz, a documented Brazilian reverse-logistics operation serving corporate clients since 2011. Distinct organisations, declared relationship: it means the person grading a chain-of-custody record has actually run one.
- Boundary discipline. Deliverables state what each record proves and what it does not. If a statement cannot be verified, it is not written.
Where this fits your obligations
The assessments are designed to feed the processes the rules require of you — risk analysis and monitoring under CSDDD, value-chain information for CSRD, supplier data organisation for CBAM and EUDR — without pretending to replace them. Your legal duty, your assurance provider and your filings remain yours; our work makes the underlying supplier evidence usable inside them.
What buyers ask us first
Can you certify our suppliers? No — and be wary of anyone who says yes. We produce advisory assessments with a published methodology. Certification is a different, accredited activity.
Do you work in English? Deliverables are in English (or Italian on request); the origin work happens in Portuguese — that is the point.
What does it cost? Engagements are scoped case by case — cohort size, depth and calendar drive the work. The scoping conversation ends with a written proposal.
Make the scoping conversation count
To arrive at a proposal in one round, include five things in your message: your role, your country, the approximate number of suppliers in Brazil, the regulation or buyer requirement driving the request (CSDDD, CSRD, CBAM, EUDR, internal policy), and the deadline that matters. We reply within one business day with next steps and a calendar slot.