Over the last few years, an increasing number of companies have wanted to work only with suppliers that can meet their standards for environmental and social issues that can help you reduce your impacts through your supply chain.
How to Select a Sustainable Supplier
In the process of looking for your suppliers one thing that you can do is perform a pre-qualification to assess the environmental and social performance of a supplier before selecting them. In your pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) you may check:
Environmental management practices
You should make sure that your supplier is certified with an environmental management system (EMS) such as ISO 14001. This way, you will be able to evaluate and monitor their environmental impact and performance, maintain legal compliance and gain senior management commitment.
Compliance with environmental legislation
You need to check if your supplier has ever been prosecuted for breaking the law.
Product environmental impact
Make sure you're fully informed. Ask about the supplier’s resource use, if waste is created during its manufacture, whether they use hazardous substances or not, and how much packaging they use. You should ensure that they adhere to the same standards as you.
Delivery of your own specific environmental or social aims
Another way of reducing your carbon footprint is throughout your supply chain. You should become a signatory of the Ethical Trading Initiative base code.
Supplier buying practices
To make sure that your sustainability goals will be achieved, one thing that you should do is check your supply chain. In other words, you need to verify not only your direct suppliers but also their suppliers. This can be useful in identifying environmental and social risks.
Social responsibility policy and practices
Confirm if the supplier identifies and assesses their own social risks and those of their supply chain. Additionally, you should verify whether the supplier monitors compliance with International Labour Organisation standards in their supply chains.
For more information on Sustainability in the Workplace, click here.
