Economic calculus as main driver

Sustainability in Procurement and Supply Chain Management

Sustainability has evolved from a trend subject to a fixed part of our corporate strategy. Many companies consider the principles of sustainability consistently in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. The main driver is economic calculus. This is the result of a joint survey of BME and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants on "Sustainable procurement - Next Level in Procurement Excellence". Worldwide, more than 250 decision makers who participated in the areas of purchasing, supply chain management and logistics.

On the topic of sustainability in procurement, companies profess example to fight corruption, to act anti-competitive agreements, child and forced labor and to strictly observe human rights, environmental, health and fair working conditions.

"Many companies are now consistently taking the principles of sustainability into account. They include not only economic, but also social and ecological risk aspects in their decisions and processes," says BME Managing Director Dr. Holger Hildebrandt. "In the near future, sustainability will play a decisive role in determining the competitiveness and acceptance of companies; it will therefore also influence the classic target dimensions of purchasing: price and costs, time and delivery reliability as well as product quality," says Roland Schwientek, Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.

Economic calculation and customer requirements

Sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive. For the overwhelming majority (83%) of the survey participants, "economic calculation" is the main driver of their sustainability efforts. This is followed by customer requirements (78%) and one's own corporate philosophy (77%). The survey reveals regional differences in the degree of maturity of sustainability activities in the procurement regions: Western Europe is the leader, with 44% of suppliers having a high or very high degree of sustainability maturity, in North America it is 32%. South America, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia are still in the early stages of development when it comes to sustainability.

38% involve suppliers in sustainability measures

According to the survey, the importance of sustainability will increase significantly in the next five years. Even today, many of the decision-makers only enter into partnerships if their business partners accept their code of conduct. Anyone who violates the rules of the "Code of Conduct" must fear sanctions up to and including exclusion from orders. A good third of the companies participating in the survey (38%) already include their direct suppliers in their sustainability efforts. The integration of several delivery stages, on the other hand, is still in its infancy: Only 20% have contact with suppliers from the second and even less than 5% from the third tier. The degree of implementation in purchasing also varies. Almost every second company has sustainability anchored in their corporate goals. But only one in four derived concrete fields of action and activities for purchasing from this.

66% say: Sustainability pays off

The majority of the companies surveyed (89%) state that they do not measure the value contribution of sustainability or are not yet able to measure it. However, this does not change anything about the approval for sustainable management. At least 66% are convinced that sustainability pays off. "The survey shows that sustainability has become a hard fact. Of course, purchasing must act even more stringently," summarizes BME General Manager Holger Hildebrandt. Berger partner Schwientek adds: "The winners of this development will be companies that understand sustainability as a source of new value creation and use it for themselves. That will be a completely new business case."

Source: Frankfurt am Main [ bme ]