Posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2008, 4:51PM
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TAGS
"Corporate Social Responsibility", "Leadership"
Sustainable procurement gains ground
Clear signals that environmental policies are rapidly gaining in importance among procurement professionals have emerged from research by a leading European management school.Procurement professionals are no longer asking why they should implement green policies, according to HEC management school in Paris, but how they can do so. But they often feel they are hampered by a lack of tools for measuring the effects of sustainable procurement, the survey found.
Sustainable procurement is now the third most important priority for European procurement executives, according to the study, answered by senior procurement executives at 85 of the largest companies in Europe. It showed that the priority given to sustainable procurement by CPOs had risen from 7th position in 2003 to third place last year.
More than 30 per cent of senior procurement executives considered sustainable policies as critical, while a further 50 per cent thought they were important. But more than nine out of ten said they had not achieved their sustainable procurement objectives for 2007. They were asked about policies ranging from the number of suppliers evaluated on environmental and social criteria to carbon emissions.
The report’s authors said there was a clear gap between companies leading on corporate social responsibility and others. This was not geographical but reflected the “maturity” of the industry sectors in which they operated.
“This provides a signal to ‘less advanced’ companies that, with suitable tools and indicators, sustainable procurement can bring a competitive advantage”, the report said. HEC was ranked as the best management school in Europe by the UK’s Financial Times last year, for the second year running.
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