Adding answers to the answer bank
The answer bank is the heart of ESGelerate: every question your customers ask you, together with your answer to it. You maintain it once, ESGelerate reuses it for every new questionnaire – and it only ever suggests what's in here.
Entries come from two places: you add them by hand, as described on this page, or you take them over from a questionnaire you've answered before. The second is usually the quicker start and is explained under Importing questionnaires.
Adding an entry
- Open the Answer bank and click + New entry.
- Choose the Category the entry belongs in.
- Under Question (reference wording), enter the question – the way your customers ask it.
- Under Answer, write the answer you want to reuse.
- Attach Evidence if you have some, such as a certificate.
- Click Save.
The entry is available for matching straight away. Everyone in your organization sees and edits the same answer bank.
The six categories
Categories keep the answer bank in order and follow the VSME standard for small and medium-sized companies:
| Category | For example |
|---|---|
| Emissions & energy | Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, energy use, share of renewable energy |
| Supply chain & due diligence | Supplier code of conduct, risk analysis, grievance mechanism |
| Certificates & records | ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001, ratings from rating agencies |
| Labor & social standards | Occupational safety, accident rate, training, diversity |
| Governance & policies | Code of conduct, anti-corruption, whistleblowing system |
| Evidence & attachments | Questions whose answer is mainly a document |
The tabs above the list show one category at a time. Categories make no difference to matching: ESGelerate always searches the whole answer bank.
Wording questions so matching finds them
ESGelerate compares the question in your customer's questionnaire with the question of your entry, not with its answer. So how the question is worded decides whether an entry is found.
- Use your customers' words. If your customers ask about "Scope 1", write "Scope 1" – not "direct emissions".
- One question per entry. Two questions packed into one entry get weaker matches for both.
- A second entry for completely different wording. If two customers ask the same thing in entirely different words, add a second entry with the other wording and the same answer.
- Answers that stand on their own. Give the year, the unit and what a figure refers to: "2025: 412 t CO₂e (Scope 1), 1,230 t CO₂e (Scope 2, market-based)" still makes sense a year from now.
Attaching evidence
Evidence is a file that backs up your answer – a certificate, a policy, a report. In the answer bank it shows up as an 📎 Evidence link on the entry.
- Replace it: open the entry with Edit and upload a new file.
- Remove it: when editing, tick remove next to the current evidence.
Evidence isn't included in the exported questionnaire. It's there to hand when a customer asks for proof.
Editing and deleting entries
Edit changes an entry's category, question, answer or evidence. The new version applies to every match from then on. Questionnaires that have already been matched keep their answers; Match again brings the new version into their automatically filled and still open questions (see Matching & review).
Delete removes an entry for good, after asking you to confirm.
Entries are also created while you review a questionnaire: any answer you write or correct there can go into the answer bank with a single tick.