Increasing Importance Of Sustainable Procurement

By Author: Ankit Kohli
Total Articles: 20

When choosing a supplier, one of the most important factors you have to look at is their ability to provide solutions and respond fast to your changing needs. Moreover, you need to find out how they can help meet your sustainability goals. After all, the sustainability of your supply chain has financial and reputational impacts. The latest GRI G4 guidelines make it essential for chief procurement officers to use a pro-active approach.

Most organisations think they are doing well with sustainable procurement guidelines, which list their expectations from suppliers based on common parameters for sustainability. They rely on those guidelines when screening a prospective supplier, too. However, for guaranteed sustainable procurement, organisations must conduct periodic and thorough assessments of every supplier and discuss sustainability issues with them to boost their performance in the long run. With sustainable procurement, organisations can leverage their supply chain to improve their sustainability performance.

Sustainable procurement is one of the factors that can help an organisation reduce waste, save money, build the reputation of their business, and boost competitiveness. Organisations need a reliable and robust framework for sustainable procurement to ensure better and stronger relationships with their suppliers. To achieve that, they can seek help from a qualified sustainability assessment solutions provider. By outsourcing sustainability assessment, organisations can be guided by a professional sustainability assessment firm, which uses a comprehensive framework to assess suppliers across geographies and industries on several parameters that can impact their sustainability performance. Through this assessment, the service provider can determine whether your supplier is compliant with standards and regulations related to governance, social, and environmental parameters. Likewise, they use best-in-class approaches to assess the efficacy of the supplier's initiatives, policies, and strategies to achieve the objectives for sustainability.

Having a customised sustainability assessment framework can help you discover critical areas where your suppliers may need to enhance their sustainability performance. A reputable sustainable procurement specialist can help with supplier engagement, too. This service can be crucial when you work with suppliers from different geographies and industries. With it, you can efficiently engage your suppliers on issues about sustainability even after being told of the key areas that need improvement. A qualified and experienced sustainable procurement service provider can facilitate effective and prompt supplier engagement by identifying the best sustainability practices that can be shared with the suppliers. That way, your suppliers can improve their sustainability performance and reduce reputational risk.

About the Company:
Pure Research Private Limited (Pure Research) provides customised research and business intelligence to leading corporates, public sector organisations, financial services firms, and professional services firms. The company specialises in providing high quality procurement and supply chain intelligence to CPOs and procurement professionals worldwide. Analysts from Pure Research work as an extension of its client’s procurement teams to deliver high quality insights on suppliers and supply markets. The company has offices in London, U.K. and New Delhi, India.