DFGE is very happy to have attended EcoVadis annual SustaIN event in Paris. The conference motto, “now is the time”, brought attention to the urgency to act now and built momentum to drive sustainable supply chain.
Now is the time to act: why
On the evening of the 10th of April, Isabelle Autisser, former French sailor, and now President of WWF France, gave a touching speech on the alarming state of biodiversity: insects species disappearing, fall of farmland birds,… She encourages the companies to act to preserve and protect biodiversity. This also goes through engaging with the supply chain on environmental topics.
Among other topics, the EcoVadis SustaIN event discussed, clarified and debated on many growing sustainability trends:
- Increasing regulatory frameworks and laws on human rights or anti-corruption (“Devoir de vigilance” in France, VN-Leitprinzipien für Wirtschaft und Menschenrechte in Germany…)
- Reducing CO2 emissions in the supply chain, and how science-based targets can help here
- Circular economy, with the example of Amcor who pledged to develop all its packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025
These latest trends prove that there is a growing awareness on sustainability topics, that DFGE hopes will keep increasing. DFGE shares the belief, that now is the time. An inspiring speech from Andre Borschberg, co-founder of Solar Impulse (a solar plane that rounded up the World), showed that what needed to be changed is mainly the mindset.
In other words, sustainability professionals need to show the world, that a new thinking is possible, the same way Mr. Borschberg, his coworker Mr. Piccard and all their team, build a new paradigm.
EcoVadis also acted the same way, when they founded their solution more than 10 years ago, in order to drive sustainable suppy chain.
Now is the time to act: what EcoVadis provides for Sustainable Procurement
EcoVadis is a sustainability rating platform for global supply chains. EcoVadis Scorecards make it easy to understand, track and improve environmental, social and ethical performance worldwide. More than 20,000 companies use EcoVadis to reduce risk, drive innovation and foster transparency and trust between trading partners.
Buyers ask their suppliers to be rated by EcoVadis’ experts on their sustainability performance following EcoVadis’ assessment methodology (+180 purchasing categories, 110 countries, and 21 CSR indicators). After the questionnaire has been completed by suppliers and necessary internal documents like policies or procedural instructions are attached, EcoVadis analysts rate it and the results are published in a scorecard, which then forms the necessary basis for improvement and discussions with buyers.
EcoVadis will now release a new version of the platform, that should help simplify the usage. As a buyer, you can use EcoVadis to monitor the progress made by your supplier and use it as a basis for collaboration. According to the panelists of the morning session “Capitalizing on sustainability, Now is the time for procurement to drive brand and business value”, a success factor for sustainable procurement was to interact with the supplier in order to find better solutions together (for example, possibility of eco-design).
You can structure your sustainable purchasing program in many different ways, to drive actions in the supply chain.
Now is the time to act: how to boost Sustainable Procurement
To foster transparency in your supply chain, and influence the environmental and social impacts happening there, various solutions can be implemented.
You can
- Include sustainability criteria in tenders, to select more sustainable suppliers
- Set a supplier code of conduct in place, to specify your requirements
- Assess your supply chain (with tools such as EcoVadis), to check how your requirements are met
- Audit your supply chain (for more risky suppliers), to act on improvements afterwards,
- Set up a risk mapping process, to adapt your approach accordingly
- Include sustainability criteria in the supplier general assessment, to give importance to the topic
- Set up various resources, to help suppliers improve their practices
- Engage with your suppliers, to collaborate on such topics
- Launch collaboration projects, to develop eco-friendly / social-friendly services
Now is the time to act: resources for Sustainable Procurement
If you want to know more about Sustainable Procurement, do not hesitate to read our articles on such topic:
- ISO 20400: https://dfge.de/sustainable-procurement-a-norm-soon-to-be-published/
- Sustainable Procurement and SDGs: https://dfge.de/define-your-sustainable-procurement-strategy-with-the-sdgs/
- EcoVadis and DFGE; https://dfge.de/ecovadis-and-dfge-partnership-boosting-sustainable-procurement-in-the-german-speaking-region/
You can also attend our specific webinars on the EcoVadis Methodology: https://dfge.de/en/ecovadis/ecovadis-webinar-training/.
We hope that you can set up or boost your sustainable procurement programs!
