Starting the New Year with Sustainable Supplier Management

With the Paris Agreement still a legally binding and ambitious target for all those who have signed up, sustainable procurement and supplier management is still a very prevalent need within organisations, particularly those with a large and extensive supply chain.

As part of our research for 2022, we asked those who work across supplier management roles, such as procurement and supply chain, numerous questions regarding their sustainable targets and goals moving forward.

Out of the baseline sample of 57 participants:

• 56% have plans to reduce their carbon footprint
• 40% of the sample said they have long-term net-zero plans
• 21% have no current targets but plan to make them
• 0% have no plans at all

The fact that the entirety of the sample is at least considering sustainability goals, highlights how prevalent this issue is. However, being able to achieve these targets is another matter entirely.

Research by Hackett Group shows that only 40% of sustainable procurement strategies are currently aligned with the ESG strategy of the organisation, demonstrating the existence of sustainability obstacles and a lack of full understanding or direction.

We believe that organisations will need to build sustainable supplier bases which align with the company targets to achieve the goals they have committed to.

With this in mind, we hosted a webinar earlier this year which delved into how you can build a supply base for the future that aligns with your sustainability goals.

The event was hosted by Mike Edmunds, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Trade Interchange, and featured guest speaker, Renee Murphy, a Principal Analyst at Forrester covering governance, risk, and compliance!

The webinar began with an introduction from Mike and Renee, looking at where organisations are today in terms of sustainability maturity, the types of commitments they have made, and how they can move forward to achieve their sustainability targets.

This was followed by a detailed discussion of each of the below points from Mike and Renee:

• How can you ensure compliance in your supply base?
• Why should your supply base align with your environmental goals?
• Why should data collected from your suppliers inform your strategy?
• What steps need to be taken to achieve operational excellence?
• How can you become safe for future generations?

For a limited amount of time, our webinar is available to view here. Watch today to avoid missing out on valuable insights.