Sustainability Management through EcoVadis
Customer: Conrad Electronic SE
Category: IT & Electronics
Date: November 2019
Founded in 1923, Conrad Electronic is a family business based in Hirschau, Eastern Bavaria. It has 3,700 employees in the Conrad Group and is represented by national companies in 16 European countries.
Digital platforms and services make Conrad the central hub for the technology and electronics industry: as one of the leading European B2B distributors, Conrad offers business customers a constantly growing B2B marketplace on conrad.de, individual consulting by key account managers and business consultants in the branches. The product range currently comprises more than 5 million products from leading manufacturers and brands.
“With a score of 51 points, we underscored our commitment to compliance and at the same time received important information on how sustainable procurement in the Conrad Supply Chain can be made even more outstanding in the future.”
Challenge
Sustainability means more than environmental management
As one of the leading global distributors of technology and electronics in Germany and Europe, Conrad offers its customers a very wide range of products. This naturally results in an extensive global supply chain system and a great responsibility for the environment and people. After Conrad 2018 was confronted with customer requests to participate in the sustainability platform EcoVadis, the best solution was sought to merge the existing measures, policies and KPIs with the least possible internal personnel expenditure, to prepare them for the assessment and to meet the EcoVadis requirements.
Conrad attaches great importance to environmental issues and the preservation of healthy livelihoods, which are implemented in the company’s environmental statement and in the application of the EMAS environmental management system.
The company’s concrete measures include the environmentally friendly disposal and reuse of electrical appliances, packaging and batteries, and strict compliance with EU directives (e.g. RoHs and REACH) as well as legal requirements (e.g. ecodesign regulations). In addition, the company strives to offer a wide range of energy-efficient electrical appliances with the lowest possible power consumption at all times.
Solution
Support from DFGE in response to the EcoVadis Assessment
Conrad became aware of the DFGE through the free EcoVadis webinars. In the course of the discussion of Conrad queries, the DFGE was able to convince as a competent contact and received the consulting order from Conrad.
Result
With individual care to the silver status right away
First of all, the main contact person at Conrad, Ms Lehner, was identified together with the contact persons of the departments within the company and familiarised with the requirements of the EcoVadis assessment in a workshop. This was followed by a formalised data collection and document review process led by the DFGE. By means of a gap analysis, the collected documents were checked for their suitability for the assessment and remaining gaps were pointed out. Conrad and the DFGE then closed these gaps together by searching for specific evidence. In the end, the DFGE accompanied the completion of the EcoVadis questionnaire and ensured the data upload of all required documents to the assessment platform.
By commissioning DFGE, Conrad was able to go through the EcoVadis process in a resource-conserving and uncomplicated manner, without having to set up cost-intensive personnel structures themselves. The target of 45/100 was clearly exceeded and with 51/100 Conrad received the EcoVadis silver status and belongs to the top 30% performers of the EcoVadis platform. In addition, entrepreneurial approaches were recognized, which now represent a good starting point for process improvements and better rating results in the future.
Thanks to DFGE’s support, Ms Lehner’s team was able to quickly identify the required data, mobilise the Conrad departments involved and define improvement measures and objectives. The Conrad team is very satisfied with this good result and strives to increase the value in the future.
The DFGE would like to thank Conrad for the opportunity and the good cooperation. The DFGE will gladly accompany the company on its way to a systematic sustainability policy.
