Sustainability in Procurement: There is still a lot to do!

200 participants discussed the topic of sustainability in procurement at the 1st BME Sustainability Summit. In the accompanying workshop, the amc Group examined the maturity level of procurement with regard to sustainability. The balance: There is still a lot to do!
Daimler wants to make climate-neutral production a fixed award criterion from now on and thus make its supply chain environmentally friendly – as Daimler CEO Ola Kaellenius recently said at the IAA. But not only the automotive industry and its suppliers are rethinking. The message has also been received in other sectors, and with it the realization that with up to 70 percent external value added, the lever for sustainability is in procurement. In Frankfurt, 200 participants met for the 1st BME Sustainability Summit.

Sustainability as a central Factor in Supplier and Risk Management

For two days, buyers discussed how to manage the balancing act between cost and environmental awareness and developed sustainable procurement strategies. It is clear that the topic is gaining enormous momentum and is changing from a green fig leaf to a central factor in procurement and risk management. It is also clear that there is still a lot to be done. This honest commitment was also a result of the 1st BME Sustainability Summit in Frankfurt.

amc-Workshop shows: There is a lack of basic Principles

In practice, there’s a lack of fundamentals: Thus, the 30 participants of the amc workshop hardly went beyond the first step in deriving a pragmatic objective and roadmap with regard to sustainability. In many cases, there is already a lack of transparency as to which materials or what proportion of the procurement volume is already being purchased sustainably today, and this is best broken down into the individual product groups. This is most likely to be the case for production materials; for indirect requirements or capital goods, the data situation in many companies seems to be rather poor.
The large number of certificates for products and companies is also often difficult to evaluate in practice, as the master data of materials and suppliers are not always ideally linked with the current certificates. Here supplier management systems with self-service function and supplier networks can help.

Starting Point for Change

It would be nice if procurement in Germany could make a joint declaration on the subject of sustainability, which the participants could perhaps sign at the next BME Sustainability Summit. From this point of view, this first summit was a starting point for the change towards responsible procurement, for which the social and ecological consequences of the supply chain are just as relevant as competitive prices, quality and reliability of suppliers. The qualities of interface manager are more in demand than ever in procurement. Sustainability can never be achieved alone, but only within the network of all internal and external partners, and it needs transparent data. The amc Group also supports you in this transformation. Talk to us and work with us on the necessary foundations for sustainable, future-proof procurement. We look forward to a lively exchange!
The photo shows amc Senior Consultant Lorenz Kleinert moderating the amc roundtable „Maturity of procurement related to sustainability“.