Last updated: June 10, 2026. By Will Tygart, author of the Commercial Restoration Carbon Protocol (CRCP). The full checklist is on this page in plain HTML — no gate, no form.
Vendor due diligence in property management has always meant three folders: license, insurance, references. ESG adds a fourth — and for most building vendors it comes down to twelve questions across environmental data capability, waste handling, labor practice, and governance basics. This checklist is built for the vendors a building actually hires — restoration crews, mechanical contractors, roofers, haulers, cleaners — not for the Fortune 500 supplier surveys that ask a 30-person contractor for a corporate sustainability report it will never have.
Why this is landing on property managers now: large enterprises are pushing their Scope 3 obligations down the chain. California’s SB 253 puts purchased goods/services and waste in the first Scope 3 reporting wave (2027); CSRD already reaches the value chains of European-exposed companies; and GRESB scores real estate entities on whether they “monitor external suppliers’ compliance with ESG-specific requirements” (GRESB Reference Guide). For a smaller vendor, inability to answer basic ESG questions is starting to mean lost contracts — which makes this checklist as useful to send your vendors in advance as it is to score them with.
The checklist
Part 1 — Environmental (the part with dollar consequences)
| # | Question | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| E1 | Can you provide job-level emissions activity data (equipment runtime, fuel, mileage, materials) in a standard format? | Yes, per-job — the CRCP twelve-field record or equivalent. “We can send our sustainability brochure” is a no. |
| E2 | How do you document waste streams and disposal? | Manifests retained, receiving facilities named, diversion/recycling rates known for typical jobs. |
| E3 | What is your fleet and equipment profile? | Vehicle list with fuel types; any electric equipment; generator policy (when grid power is available, do crews use it?). |
| E4 | What chemicals do you bring into occupied buildings? | SDS sheets on request, low-VOC defaults, antimicrobial protocols that respect indoor air in occupied space. |
| E5 | Have you accepted contractual emissions-data clauses before? | Yes, or willing — the MSA line: “per-job emissions data in the requesting organization’s specified format as a condition of final invoice approval.” |
Part 2 — Social (the part your tenants ask about)
| # | Question | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| S1 | Workforce: employees or 1099 crews? Training and certifications current? | Stable crews, named certs (IICRC for restoration, EPA 608 for mechanical, OSHA 30 supervision). |
| S2 | Prevailing wage / labor compliance where applicable? | Clean record; no open wage cases. (NYC work makes this a practical, not theoretical, screen.) |
| S3 | Site conduct in occupied buildings: background checks, badging, tenant-interaction policy? | A written policy, not an assurance. |
Part 3 — Governance (the part that predicts the other two)
| # | Question | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| G1 | Who owns ESG/compliance questions at the firm? | A named person who answers within a business day — ownership is the whole test. |
| G2 | Documentation discipline: can you produce last year’s job files? | Fast retrieval. A vendor who can find the file can fill the carbon template; insurance-trained contractors usually can. |
| G3 | Data handling: how is our building’s information stored and shared? | Basic answer covering job photos, access records, and any cloud platforms used. |
| G4 | Subcontracting: do these standards flow down? | Yes, contractually — otherwise every answer above only covers the top layer. |
How to score it without building a bureaucracy
Three tiers, not a spreadsheet of weights: Ready (answers E1/E2/G2 affirmatively with evidence — these are your strategic vendors and your CRCP early adopters); Willing (gaps, but accepts the MSA clause and the template — most good trade vendors live here in 2026; give them a cycle to mature); Resistant (will not commit to documentation — a flag that predicts problems well beyond carbon). The honest framing for vendors: none of this is legally required of them today, and you should say so. It is contractually required by you, because GRESB, SB 253-covered tenants, and investor questionnaires are asking you — and the vendors who can answer become the ones you can put in front of any client.
Apply the 80/20 before applying the checklist
CDP’s supplier data shows roughly 20% of suppliers drive about 80% of supply-chain emissions — and fewer than half of data requests get answered at all. Run the full checklist on the carbon-heavy minority — restoration, demolition, roofing, mechanical replacement, hauling — and only Parts 2–3 on the long tail. Your window washer does not need a fleet profile; your restoration vendor absolutely does, because a single large water loss can out-emit a year of routine maintenance (the only published figure in the field: restoring one flooded home ≈ 6.5 return transatlantic flights of CO2, per Aviva — commercial losses run larger).
What this means for each seat at the table
| If you are the… | The checklist is… |
|---|---|
| Owner | Your GRESB supplier-monitoring evidence, generated as a byproduct of procurement you already do. |
| Facility / property manager | A one-page addition to vendor onboarding that future-proofs every contract you sign this year — send it before the RFP, not after the award. |
| Tenant (corporate occupier) | Proof your landlord’s vendor pool can feed your Scope 3 inventory — worth one question in your next lease negotiation. |
Frequently asked questions
What should a vendor ESG questionnaire ask?
Twelve questions across three parts: environmental data capability (job-level emissions data, waste documentation, fleet, chemicals, contract clauses), social practice (workforce, wage compliance, site conduct), and governance (a named owner, document retrieval, data handling, subcontractor flow-down). Skip corporate-footprint questions small vendors cannot answer.
Is ESG vendor due diligence legally required for property managers?
No law requires it today. The drivers are GRESB’s scored supplier-monitoring indicator, SB 253-covered tenants whose 2027 Scope 3 reporting includes purchased services and waste, and investor questionnaires — contractual and commercial pressure, not statute.
How is this different from a normal vendor compliance checklist?
Standard checklists cover licenses, insurance, and references. This adds the ESG layer that those never touch — specifically the job-level carbon data capability that generic corporate supplier surveys ask for in a form building trades cannot answer.
Which vendors should get the full checklist?
The carbon-heavy 20%: restoration, demolition, roofing, mechanical replacement, and hauling. Routine low-impact services need only the social and governance parts.
What if a vendor fails the environmental section?
Distinguish willing from resistant. A vendor with gaps who accepts the data clause and template is normal in 2026 — give them a cycle. A vendor who refuses documentation commitments is telling you something about every future claim file too.