🌱Supply chain action & procurement – it’s time to get personal
+ 4 top tips for constructive collaboration with your supply chain
Happy Monday! Every Monday we suit up and get serious - digging into a climate topic, rounding up the past week’s Good(s) News and sharing updates from across FTF, so you’re never out of the loop.
If, like me, part of your annual (or bi-annual) to-do list includes engaging your suppliers on their impact, then you are in for a treat this week!
The first year I sent a supplier ESG/impact questionnaire, I almost didn’t expect to get a response. I’m pretty sure I didn’t. The second year I got enough responses to think “yes, they are now getting the message, we all need to care about sustainability”… but not much was done with the data because in my mind it was a baseline for future. The third year I sent one out, I got an avalanche of data back. And that’s when I realised two things: 1. we can now do something with this data, and 2. we should have decided what we wanted to do with it before we asked for it!
Thank the gods of procurement that they sent us Charlotte, our guest writer this week, from the Sustainable Procurement Pledge to nudge us into a more mindful approach.
For another article full of amazing insights and resources, read on…
The Better Business Summit is the annual flagship conference by the Better Business Network and betternotstop taking place Wednesday 15th - Friday 17th January 2025. A two day conference followed by a day in Nature. Check out the line up and use code FTF15 to get 15% discount on tickets here.
> In Focus
Supply chains: Looking to drive change? This is where real operational impact happens!
by Charlotte Horder
Global supply chains employ millions of people worldwide, accounting for 75,000 million jobs in South East Asia alone and 37% of jobs in the U.S., impacting where and in what conditions they work, how families live and what opportunities they have (#HumanRights). Upstream Scope 3 emissions, those occurring in supply chains, represent on average 70% of a company’s emissions, and in some sectors this can be over 90% (#ClimateChange). An estimated $12-15 Trillion annually is spent on the procurement of goods and services (#Influence).
If you want to drive positive change in business, partnering with your supply chain is crucial, this is where practical impact happens at scale! If you have procurement team members, those tasked with the sourcing of goods and services, you are certain to find people eager to tackle sustainability challenges. To date, this pool of professionals has too often been perceived as not taking an interest. That is simply not true. However, there is a considerable need for upskilling and support surrounding sustainability. Reach out, learn their challenges and identify mutual priority areas.
What are top priorities across supply chains and sourcing?
We are facing a perfect storm. Geopolitics, natural disasters, and economic constraints are disrupting global supply chains. Stability and resilience remain critical, but a wave of regulations—such as CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and CBAM—are reshaping priorities. Legislation is challenging a company's licence to operate. While all topics matter, the recent Gartner Procurement Pulse survey highlights what’s top of mind and gaining importance.
Connect & collaborate to embrace collective learning
Behind the complexity of multi-tiered supply chains and maze of legislation, are people, just like you and I. Interested, yet struggling with time constraints whilst trying to upskill and manage these big tasks. Learning and support networks are of real importance. The Sustainable Procurement Pledge is a global community with over 19 chapters offering free peer-to-peer learning, specifically for procurement and supply chain professionals to discuss challenges, share tools and success stories on how these have been overcome. Safe-spaces are created for open conversations about what is not yet working well and activities aim to provide straightforward information and pragmatic tools. Sustainability professionals are also welcome to join, engage and better understand approaches specifically from a supply chain perspective.
Two examples of the power of collaborative knowledge-sharing networks:
The Scope 3 Chapter Playlist, where the real-estate multinational CBRE, introduces the management of supply chain emissions and shares learnings from its decarbonisation journey with 7,500 suppliers.
In a brand-new community initiative from the Pharma & Life Sciences Chapter, over 70 suppliers have shared their best-practice case studies to learn and exchange with one another. The top entries will be entered into The SPP Guide, with the winner being celebrated in an online event in December. Collective learning brings us all further.
4 top tips for constructive collaboration with your supply chain
Here are a few points that regularly come up across community discussions, regarding gaining more traction to advance supply chain sustainability. All items speak to the same theme – collaboration!
Data collection – prioritise and limit Suppliers are inundated with questionnaires and data collection is time-consuming. Establish your objectives and base questions on leading frameworks, e.g. GHG protocol for emission data. Before creating a whole new survey, you could even ask partners to share responses that they may already have to hand. Think carefully about what information you will need and be able to act on. Avoid the temptation to ask multiple ‘nice to haves’. Suppliers are also sensitive to not having their time wasted, so demonstrate how you use the information collected.
1 to 1 contact Find the right person. Keep in mind that your direct contact’s experience might be limited, so try to connect with someone at each of your suppliers who can best support your goals. If no one is quite there yet, consider how you can help them grow their skills. Supplier days are great for supporting learning journeys and forging collaborations.
Leadership level talks Set clear intentions. If improving your supply chains really is a top priority level, invite a leadership conversation to set commitment early on, between your company executive and that of your suppliers.
Start small with pilots To get the ball rolling and streamline tried and tested approaches, test run sustainability initiatives with trusted supply chain partners. Not only does this deepen relationships, it also enables smoother roll-outs down the line.
Supply chain activation surrounding sustainability is by no means an easy task, however, when taken with a human approach and dedicated time, it can be the catalyst for a new level of change. This group of professionals needs to be empowered to be part of positive transformation, support their learning journey. Lean into procurement, help connect colleagues with peer-networks and learn more about the working world they are confronted with.
> Follow up with…
Guide: Procurement Climate Change Action Guide | Project Drawdown key scene setting tips, actions and resources to activate procurement
Resource: Embedding Projects Sustainable Procurement Wheel helps companies to embed sustainability across their procurement and supply chain practices
Report: The full SPP / Gartner Procurement Pulse Survey report is available via the SPP Ambassadors LinkedIn Group
Tool: The SPP Guide is a practical tool, that includes the ugly truths, best practices, case studies, and hands-on, actionable solutions for procurement professionals who are committed to driving sustainability
> Last week in consumer goods x climate…
The Good(s) News
>> Challenger brands
🎯 Belazu announced that for the fifth consecutive year they will be donating 100% of its Black Friday profits to The Belazu Foundation, which supports food and education projects locally and across its supply chain.
🎯 Redefine Meat has partnered with UK pub chain Greene King to serve its 3D-printed plant-based products, including the flagship Beef Flank steak, at 1,000 restaurants. This milestone caps a record year, with UK foodservice sales doubling and retail revenue at Ocado growing by 150%.
🎯 Freitag is swapping Black Friday sales...for swapping. They are encouraging customers to swap their pre-loved bags with those of others in their SWAP (Shopping Without Any Payment) initiative.
>>Bigger organisations
⭐️ Ganni has introduced a Materials Index to showcase their use of recycled, organic, and high animal welfare materials. This initiative supports their goal of reducing their total carbon footprint by 50% by 2027 (from 2021), with materials accounting for almost 60% of their emissions.
⭐️ ASKET announced the continuation of their Black Friday tradition - shutting down their website and Stockholm stores for new sales but keeping them open for repairs and purchasing of repaired garments only. This marks their eighth year that the brand is choosing to celebrate their garments over consumption.
⭐️ The Bel Group have partnered with Lallemand, Protial and Avril to launched the €9 million "Cocagne Project," a collaborative effort to develop plant-based cheeses. Supported by France’s carbon neutrality-focused France 2030 program, the initiative aligns with Bel's goal of generating 50% of sales from plant- and fruit-based products by 2050.
Want good news sooner? We post our top 5 stories in our LinkedIn newsletter every Friday! If your CPG brand has good news to share, let us know.👇
> In case you missed it
Want more? Here’s what’s happening across FTF at the moment…
Well one really exciting thing happened this past week. Not sure we mentioned it!? A little Open Mic session at Nudie…What? We mentioned that 2376 times? Oh, sorry! Here is a picture of a few of us huddled in Nudie Jeans’ store room on the night getting ready to talk with you lovely people about Black Friday.
Tell us what topic you would love to see us cover at our next event 👇
Want more? Hang tight for ‘The Check-Out’ this Thursday for the latest brands in our basket. In the meantime, if you have any topics that you would like us to dig into, ping us an email on info@followingthefootprints.com to say hi!
Much love,
Team FTF