Sustainable supply chain

We seek to promote social responsibility and good environmental performance throughout our supply chain.

This not only improves our social and environmental impact, but also helps us to assess and manage risks in the supply chain.

In our supplier relationship survey, we asked whether our commitment to social and environmental issues has had an impact on the way suppliers operated - both internally and with their own suppliers. 16% of the 105 respondents said they had changed their operations and 13% responded that it had affected the way they operated with their own suppliers.

We have identified the following high-risk areas, based on a social, ethical and environmental risk assessment of our supply chain, and the products and services that we purchase:
  • Telecommunications and electronic equipment
  • Company car fleet
  • Distribution and freight services
  • Marketing support and desktop material
We developed a self-assessment questionnaire in co-operation with Ethical Supply Chain Limited based on human rights, International Labour Organisation standards, and sound environmental practices. We sent this to 24 suppliers representing 29% of our total spend in the industry groups which we have a significant relationship and a high turnover with.

We have also met our commitment to support closely those suppliers asked to meet minimum qualifying criteria. We worked closely with them on completing the self-assessment, explaining our approach and providing practical examples.

We're delighted that all 24 suppliers responded to this questionnaire. The evaluation has helped to improve our understanding of our impacts through the supply chain. It also made our suppliers more conscious of the importance of sound social, ethical and environmental behaviour in their businesses. The findings confirm there are no major issues in our supply chain.

We have provided individual feedback to all the suppliers and, as an additional incentive to improve performance, we have also ranked suppliers according to their scores. This element of competition is designed to demonstrate the scope for improvement and to encourage better scores next time around. See case study.

As a result of the social and environmental evaluation and in line with our commitment for 2004/05, we have introduced minimum qualifying criteria, based on social and environmental risks, for those of our suppliers that fall into the high-spend and high-risk categories. We will continue to provide close support for all suppliers asked to meet these qualifying criteria, and continue to evaluate new suppliers in this category (See Environmental impact). We also plan to consider including a clause in new contracts to cover social and environmental risks.

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