CSR is a driver of overall business performance: responsible procurement serves as a catalyst for this.
📢 Testimonial from Samuel Réthoré, Procurement & CSR Engineering Expert and Project Director atthe Académie des achats
Today, it is imperative to integrate CSR issues into the strategies of’procurement strategies of companies and public organizations if we are to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves at the global, European, and, of course, national levels—and, in doing so, comply with current and future regulatory requirements…
There are many CSR topics in which companies can strive to set an example.
Reducing emissions of the main greenhouse gases is an environmental priority.
Capping carbon emissions from human activities—and more specifically, decarbonizing industrial, commercial, and service-sector activities—is now recognized as an imperative and high-priority goal, as evidenced by increasingly stringent regulatory requirements.
Therefore, companies must improve their products and services to reduce their environmental impacts—including carbon emissions into the atmosphere—at every stage of their life cycle.
To do this, it will be necessary to’engage suppliers early on to identify potential ways to reduce material and energy consumption and, above all, to be able to measure this expected progress in order to ensure its sustainability over the long term.
From a logistical standpoint, thetheimpact of product transportation must be taken into’assessed through data-driven measures in order to manage the reduction of GHG emissions resulting from the transport of goods purchased by factories (upstream logistics) and those distributed after sales (downstream logistics).
Among the existing solutions for measuring and managing the environmental footprint of purchases, GCI’s software platform offers direct and simplified access to internationally recognized carbon calculation protocols that are complex to implement on one’s own.
Updates reflecting changes to these protocols by GCI’s digital engineering team will ensure that users can rely on the long-term accuracy of the calculated data and the reports summarizing it.
Working groups may then be established to explore—with optional support from GCI’s accredited expert partners—various ways to reduce reported emissions in order to ensure the reduction trajectory established following the initial assessment, and to define a planshared action plan, as well as the expected contributions from each department of the’company.
There are therefore numerous potential areas of improvement for any company, and these results will be the product of collaborative, interdisciplinary work that draws on all internal expertise.
External support from specialists in the’responsible purchasing will also provide an informed outside perspective on which issues to prioritize following an initial audit, to prevent the’company from spreading itself too thin and exhausting its internal resources.
Monitoring ofprogress by an external partner at regular intervals (usually a monthly review) willtherefine the management of the various thematic performance projects to ensure the’achievement of the targeted results, including measuring the decarbonization driven by procurement, through the strategic plan for’defined responsible procurement strategy.
Finally, the company will be able to share progress updates with its customers and external partners and celebrate each milestone with the teams involved to strengthen everyone’s confidence and motivation to continue working together toward sustainable development. The user-friendly design of GCI’s software solution will make it easy and quick to share periodic decarbonization metrics to monitor performance over the short, medium, and long term…
On a related note, see the link between CSR and the Sustainable Development Goals