Support the Strategy

Description

Position procurement as a source of innovation and insight for solving business problems

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Your external-facing role makes you uniquely positioned to become a strategic solutions provider for your organisation by capturing strategically relevant information and insight from across the value chain.

Build the business case for sustainable procurement

Building the business case for sustainable procurement is one crucial way that procurement can contribute to conversations about the organisation’s strategic priorities.³ Start by reframing your sustainable procurement objectives to clearly show how they overlap with your organisation’s sustainability priorities. This will reveal procurement’s integral role in the sustainability agenda. Engaging in projects with suppliers that demonstrate quick wins, can pave the way for broader, more transformative proposals in the future. Where possible, document the financial or other quantifiable benefits associated with your sustainable procurement projects. You can then share these successes to help strengthen the business case for future sustainable procurements.⁴,

EXAMPLE: Aligning sustainability with business priorities at NSG Group

NSG Group created a cross-functional steering group to create a consensus on aligning sustainable procurement with organisation-wide business priorities. This included highlighting the connections between sustainable supply chains and meeting rising consumer and investor expectations for sustainability, compliance requirements, reducing risks, and increasing employee engagement.⁷

EXAMPLE: Strategic supplier partnerships for reusable in-store displays at Best Buy

Best Buy aimed to redesign its in-store display units for reuse to reduce costs.⁶ Success required cross-departmental alignment, involving stakeholders from store operations to branding, and strategic engagement with suppliers to identify sustainable material substitutions.

Leverage procurement as a hub for innovation and insight

The procurement function can be a source of innovation. Stepping into this role requires procurement to proactively look across the value chain for trends and sustainable solutions. This may include collaborating with suppliers to scout for new technologies or exploring sustainable alternatives that address business challenges. For instance, you may discover alternative materials or circular business models that fit your organisation’s needs. By consolidating this intelligence, you can create a portfolio of potential sustainable solutions and projects to share with colleagues across the business.

Procurement’s direct engagement with suppliers also gives it unique insights into the risks associated with value chain trends and challenges. Consider how your team can better engage in strategy discussions to share these important sustainability insights.

EXAMPLE: Kingfisher’s working group for product circularity

Kingfisher's home improvement company has drawn on experts from its production, manufacturing, retail, and logistics to create an innovation-focused working group called "ReMade”. Its mandate is to develop products with end-of-life management credentials through recyclability and reusability.⁹

Resources
Making the Case for Investment in Your Company’s Sustainable Purchasing Program  cover

Making the Case for Investment in Your Company’s Sustainable Purchasing Program

This white paper by the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council helps you unlock the financing needed for sustainable procurement efforts. It is based on input from sustainable procurement champions at eight companies in various industries and sizes. The key finding is that you need to demonstrate that your investment requests are small relative to the business value they will generate.

Galvanizing Action: Strategies to Maximize Engagement in Sustainable Public Purchasing cover

Galvanizing Action: Strategies to Maximize Engagement in Sustainable Public Purchasing

This white paper by the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council brings together knowledge and experience from CPOs and program leaders in public procurement. It outlines six tactics for motivating your leadership and colleagues to engage with sustainable purchasing.

Building a Business Case for Sustainable Procurement: A 5-Step Guide cover

Building a Business Case for Sustainable Procurement: A 5-Step Guide

This Ecovadis guide aims to inspire and provoke a convincing case for management and other teams to buy into the sustainable procurement journey.

How to Talk to Your CFO About Sustainability cover

How to Talk to Your CFO About Sustainability

This article explains how to use the five-step Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) method to help CFOs make the connection between financial performance and sustainability. This resource will especially benefit change agents who are trying to show how proposed sustainability acitivities will meet ROI imperatives.

[PUBLIC] The Procura+ Manual: A Guide to Implementing Sustainable Procurement: Chapter II cover

[PUBLIC] The Procura+ Manual: A Guide to Implementing Sustainable Procurement: Chapter II

This guide by Procura+ provides key insights on implementing sustainable procurement.

Support the Strategy: Section 2.1 provides details on how to build the case for sustainable procurement and section 2.2 covers how to gather the necessary internal support to make sustainability procurement successful.

Commit: Section 2.3: the Procura + Management Cycle, covers sustainable target setting in procurement on pages 28 to 40.

The Role of Procurement as a Trusted Advisor to Management cover

The Role of Procurement as a Trusted Advisor to Management

This article by Trusted Advisor argues that procurement’s transition from a transactional to a strategic role has stalled. It blames misaligned targets and metrics for undermining this transition. The article helps guide you to take on a more strategic approach by highlighting six areas where misalignment commonly occurs.