Last month, I spoke about how important it is for companies to collaborate with one another – and, of course, with their suppliers – if they are to make meaningful progress on reducing their Scope 3 footprint.
As members of Procurement Leaders’ Risk and Sustainability Strategy Cohort gathered last week to discuss this topic in more depth, a sustainable procurement executive at one chemicals company illustrated both the scale of the challenge – and the potential power of thinking collaboratively to find a solution.
He explained the company works with around 80,000+ suppliers and actively engages with the vendors that account for around one-quarter of its Scope 3 footprint. Yet that leaves a long tail unaccounted for. So how can you cover the remainder of the supply base?
If we’re being honest, even with all the will in the world, it’s an impossible task for one organisation. But for 50 organisations? Or 100? Or even more? Then it becomes far more plausible.
Using the example of Together for Sustainability, a collaborative venture within the chemicals sector, the sustainable procurement executive explained how the group comes together to develop shared standards, disseminate tools and best practice, as well as elevate supplier capabilities through the TfS Academy. As he explained to the group, the aim is to “leverage what we can together as a community… it’s not about reinventing the wheel”.
While antitrust laws have always been considered a barrier to closer to collaboration, he shared that these considerations had in fact inspired more focused and productive conversations, with organisations focusing on developing solutions that can be applied across the industry – rather than thinking about individual concerns from the outset.
To be clear, collaboration is not a silver bullet; tackling Scope 3 emissions is a multifaceted challenge that will require buyers to engage with suppliers and win their trust, plus technological support and huge tenacity, but pooling knowledge and amplifying the different conversations taking place in boardrooms, industry groups and peer communities to enable progress is going to help procurement teams to go further than they ever could on their own.
Monitoring sustainability progress
As businesses continue their preparations for the coming year, our colleagues at Sustainability Leaders are busy gathering responses to help power the findings for their Sustainability Planning Guide 2025.
With the relationship between procurement and sustainability growing ever closer – not to mention an increasing number of CPOs assuming responsibility for sustainability – CPOs are able to bring a uniquely valuable perspective. Please take a few minutes to participate in the survey and help enable the community to deliver on their ESG goals.
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