The DEI4SME Digital Tool helps individuals, educators, and businesses improve their understanding and practice of social sustainability. The tool supports you in reporting, managing, and learning about social sustainability in business.
The tool offers resources for:
- Learning about social sustainability
- Assessing firm's engagement in various areas of social sustainability
- Planning workshops and improvement activities within your company concerning social sustainability
- Reporting on social sustainability practices and actions
- Assessing individual inclusion competencies and planning their development
- For educators, the tool also offers resources with educational tips on how to use this tool in classes and courses, using it in business simulations or reflection discussions.
Whether you are an SME owner or representative, an educator, or a learner, the tool provides practical resources to support your development and organizational goals.
The terms and conditions can be found easily at this link: terms and conditions.
The tool is available at tool.dei4sme.eu. And the entire website (tool.dei4sme.eu) is the tool with different functions. Within the website, you can access several different resources and functionalities:
- Learn & Plan: Access learning materials and workshop planning resources to support individual and organizational development.
- Social Sustainability Report: Create a report that helps you document and communicate your organization's social sustainability activities and practices.
- VSME Standard Report: Generate a report aligned with the Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for SMEs (VSME), supporting sustainability reporting efforts.
- Inclusion Competences: Assess your competences related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social sustainability.
- Educator Resources: Explore teaching materials, exercises, and educational resources designed for trainers, educators, and facilitators.
There are many possibilities what you can do with this tool and the answer depends on your goals.
You can use the tool to:
- Learn about social sustainability
- Assess firm's engagement with social sustainability in its daily practices, human resource management, compliance, and strategic management actions
- Facilitate discussions and workshops within your organization on engagement with social sustainability
- Create action plans for improving workplace inclusion and social sustainability actions
- Report on social sustainability activities and initiatives
- Assess your own inclusion competences and identify areas for development
- Access educational materials and practical resources
The tool is designed to support both personal learning and organizational development. The digital tool can be used once or many times for different or the same purpose. You choose the scope and the level of your engagement.
To start, think if this tool is relevant for you. If you want to understand, learn about, implement, or benefit from social sustainability in business, this platform is for you. This digital tool is designed for:
- Single entrepreneurs
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as defined by the EU: businesses with fewer than 250 employees and either annual turnover ≤ €50 million or balance sheet total ≤ €43 million. More information on SME status in the EU here
- For educators who teach business, entrepreneurship, management, sustainability, or related subjects
Then, if you identify with any of the user groups, please identify your goal for using this digital tool. Start by asking yourself: What do I want to achieve? What brought me to this digital tool?
- I want to learn and understand what social sustainability is and how it is relevant for business > Start with Learn & Plan.
- I want to organize a workshop or discussion in my company around social sustainability > Visit the Learn & Plan section and check examples and action plan forms that can be used in your workshops.
- I want to report on my company's social sustainability activities > This digital tool provides two reporting forms: Social Sustainability Report and VSME Standard Report. When reporting, you need to choose only one form that fits your needs best. Check out each form first to decide which one to use and document your actions and progress in a structured, easy-to-use reporting environment.
- I want to understand my own competences > Start with the Inclusion Competences Assessment.
- I am an educator or trainer looking for teaching materials > Explore the educator resources in the page Educator Resources.
And, if you are still unsure, browse the available sections and choose the one that best matches your current objectives.
Don't worry! User guides and manuals to help you navigate the platform are being finalised and will be available here soon.
The guides will provide step-by-step instructions, examples, and explanations for each section of the tool.
Businesses can use the tool to:
- Assess current inclusion and social sustainability practices
- Identify strengths and areas for improvement
- Increase employee awareness of diversity and inclusion topics
- Support internal training and workshop activities
- Develop action plans for workplace improvement
- Document social sustainability initiatives
- Prepare sustainability-related reports
The tool is particularly useful for SMEs looking to strengthen their social sustainability practices in a practical and accessible way.
We have crafted a glossary of terms page for exactly that reason. Check out the description of the most commonly used and referred to terms right here: Glossary of Terms.
Also, please note that each reporting form includes many information buttons. As you are filling out social sustainability reports, some examples, guidance, and insights are likely to be available in these information buttons on the reporting form.
The tool supports personal and professional development by helping you:
- Assess your current inclusion-related competences
- Identify areas where you would like to improve
- Access learning resources and educational materials
- Reflect on your own attitudes, knowledge, and practices
- Develop skills related to social sustainability
The Inclusion Competences Assessment is a great place to begin your learning journey.
You are also welcome to check various examples, cases, and linked resources on social sustainability in business provided in section Learn & Plan. These resources will help you develop a stronger understanding of social sustainability in business and how you can strengthen it while engaging with different areas.
The tool and reports are intended as self-assessment aids and do not replace professional legal compliance advice and actions that organizations must take to be compliant.
Completing a VSME report or any other voluntary sustainability disclosure, such as a social sustainability report, does not in itself make a company "compliant." Compliance depends on meeting the specific legal or regulatory requirements that apply to the firm, such as CSRD, national laws, or sector-specific rules. Voluntary frameworks like VSME or Social Sustainability Report are useful tools for structuring and communicating sustainability information, but they do not automatically ensure alignment with regulatory obligations.
No, you do not need to create any account to access and utilize the tool and its resources.
Yes, the DEI4SME Digital Tool has been developed as part of the DEI4SME project and co-funded by the European Union to support learning and organizational development in the area of social sustainability, and it is entirely free to use.
There are three places where the user is suggested to provide an email address: (1) on the social sustainability report form, (2) on the VSME standard report form, and (3) in the inclusion competency report form. By entering an email in these forms, you allow the system to send you reports that you have developed. The email is not stored on the site and is only used to send you reports and files.
After generating reports and providing your email for delivery, you will receive two types of files in your inbox: a PDF file with your sustainability report and the .dei4sme file, which allows you to return to the digital tool whenever needed and have the entire report prefilled for you. Because the tool does not store any information online, it is designed so that you remain the owner of your information.
Thus, if you want to improve your report or reuse it next time you report, reducing the time needed to fill the report, you can upload the .dei4sme file to the system, see the place to do that at the start of the report form, and only edit the file report rather than fill it from scratch.
Note: a repeated user function and two types of files are available in (1) on the social sustainability report form and (2) on the VSME standard report form.
In the (3) inclusion competency report form, you receive only the report with the suggested actions for improvement and practices that may be useful for you. Thus, it is a wonderful way to retain your personal development plan for yourself.
No, this tool does not store, retain, or share any data you enter. All information is processed solely to provide the service and is permanently deleted from our systems immediately after processing. No personal or company data is kept for any purpose. You retain full control of your data at all times.
Before starting to fill out the report, you have an acknowledgement to make by selecting "I accept terms and conditions for using this digital reporting form (obligatory)" so that you are aware of the details about this tool as well as its data handling procedures.
If you want the DEI4SME team to know about your company's best practices and read the report that you developed, you can choose to have your report sent to the DEI4SME team. As you start reporting, you can select "I agree that reports that I develop with this reporting tool would be used for research purposes and additionally saved (optional)". Only if you select this option, the report that you develop will be shared with you and the DEI4SME team, who will be able to access the report. If you do not select this optional choice, the DEI4SME team will not be able to access or see the report that you generated using this tool.
If you encounter a technical issue, notice incorrect information, or experience unexpected behaviour, please contact our team at: contact@dei4sme.eu.
Please include:
- A description of the issue
- The page where the issue occurred
- Screenshots, if available
We will review your feedback and work to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.