World Sustainable Procurement Day — The Ultimate Guide

The Significance of Social Procurement

Lucie Durand, the director and head of unusual partners at Yunus Social Business, gave an introduction to social procurement and leadership required at the event. 

About 63% of executives responded to a survey in 2021 that the key priority for their procurement is sustainability. This has shown that the growth of sustainability-driven action in business is thriving compared to 2020 and the prior years. 

Her talk was mostly centered around the development of social procurement. Additionally, she discussed how integrating it is a multilayer process that needs visibility in the supply chain, various resources, and negotiation with all the stakeholders of an organization including its suppliers. 

Another speaker at the event, Andy Daly, the head of corporate partnerships at Social Enterprise UK, explained their “buy social corporate challenges” in partnership with the DCMS department of the government. 

Their aim is to collectively spend £1 billion with social enterprises through their procurement. Despite the pandemic, it became a successful year in regard to their spending. 

Jaime Paiva, also an SPP member as co-chair for supplier diversity, represented Zurich as head of procurement and vendor management.

In his talk, he made a point of understanding company strategy before applying a procurement strategy. Thus, it will help procurement professionals to understand fully how social procurement can contribute to the world. 

Championing Sustainable Procurement Leadership

The session panel for this was made up of SPP members who are also chief procurement officers. The important takeaway in this session was how suppliers can implement sustainable procurement practices by creating their own external ecosystem. 

Lisa Martin, the chief procurement officer at GSK, describes this as building a bridge to the outside world to improve scope 3 practices. 

The structure of procurement teams was tackled in the event. Thomas Udesen, the chief procurement officer at Bayer as well as the co-founder of SPP, said that the procurement function should have its own Center of Excellence (COE) that is both enabling and governing. 

Bertrand Conqueret, chief of procurement at Henkel and also the co-founder of SPP, added organizations may find it best to have a team dedicated to sustainability who work to implement the practices into every function. 

Bertrand likes the mindset of sustainability being a catalyst of innovation in what he calls “sustaination”. Thomas suggested that organizations should initiate supplier innovation sessions and facilitate briefing sessions to push for change. 

Supplier Diversity Programs

The diverse panel includes the founder and CEO of Minority Supplier Development (MSD) UK, Mayank Shah, and representatives of large corporate bodies. 

The UN definition of a diverse-owned business appears to be the most used. This refers to diverse businesses as 51% or more owned, managed, and controlled by members of underrepresented groups in the country in which they do their operations. 

Zurich was again represented by Jaime Pavia who introduced the defining factors of a diverse supplier. Compared to 48% of the entire UK workforce, 61% of social enterprise workforces are female. 

Additionally, 14% of social enterprises are led by a professional from a minority community compared to 8% of mainstream SMEs.  Furthermore, 55% of organizations reported having directors with a disability. 

Mayank Shah has introduced the first certification for self-employed freelance ethnic minority founders which was launched last April this year. The certification recognizes device suppliers and enhances diverse procurement practices. 

To Conclude

This was just a summary of some of the 20 talks held on World Sustainable Procurement Day. It was a fun and fruitful day as many professionals have learned so much. They have heard from all corners of the sustainability and business worlds. 

Many professionals have become aware of the challenges in sustainability procurement which all procurement and supply chain professionals will undertake to contribute to the world.