University’s procurement department selected by CHESC as a sustainability leader for its innovative use of supplier sustainability ratings in partnership with EcoVadis
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — (July 12, 2019) — Today, the University of California (UC) received a Sustainability Innovators award at the 2019 California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC). UC Procurement Services was recognized for its work with EcoVadis, the world’s most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, in collaboratively defining and implementing a sustainable procurement program that provides mutual value for the university, its community and suppliers.
Recognizing that organizations’ purchasing power can be used as a force for good, the University of California has embraced the opportunity to drive sustainability improvements by adopting a standardized rating system to regulate and monitor supplier practices across all 10 UC campuses. With EcoVadis’ support, UC Procurement Services assesses, manages and drives improvements in supplier sustainability performance across key criteria, including environmental, social, labor and ethical practices, a historically challenging task for a widely decentralized organization with public procurement constraints.
“In alignment with our mission to educate, illuminate and serve, UC has focused on the development of robust sustainable procurement practices since 2016. This new focus on sustainable procurement included a major revision in 2018 of our Sustainable Practices Policy to emphasize a shift in our buying and sourcing practices to help UC drive progressive supply chain sustainability in the years to come,” said Stephanie Lopez, Special Programs Manager for UC Procurement Services. “The new policy and tools we’ve selected to support implementation, along with our partnership with EcoVadis, have set a higher standard systemwide for UC suppliers through a performance management mindset.”
“It’s impossible to drive sustainable outcomes if stakeholders aren’t on the same page. UC is a great example of a procurement organization that has leveraged rich scoring scales and universally understood performance indicators to engage suppliers with clear paths toward continuous improvement,” said David McClintock, marketing director at EcoVadis. This approach minimizes investment in chasing reluctant or non-compliant suppliers, freeing up resources to focus on improvements, and yields more enduring results.”
UC Procurement Services presented its case study in sustainable procurement, “Procurement as a Force for Good: UC Revamps Sustainable Procurement,” at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference on Wednesday, July 10 at UC Santa Barbara.
To learn more about the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference and the best practice awards, please visit https://chesc.org/best-practice-awards/2019-best-practice-award-winners-2/.
Public sector buyers can learn more about how to apply ratings to the sustainable public procurement process by visiting https://resources.ecovadis.com/public-procurement/sustainable-public-procurement-public-sector-handbook.
About EcoVadis
EcoVadis is the world’s most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, intelligence and collaborative performance improvement tools for global supply chains. Backed by a powerful technology platform and a global team of domain experts, EcoVadis’ easy-to-use and actionable sustainability scorecards provide detailed insight into environmental, social and ethical risks across 198 purchasing categories and 155 countries. Industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, L’Oréal, Subway, Nestlé, Salesforce, Michelin and BASF are among the more than 55,000 businesses on the EcoVadis network, all working with a single methodology to evaluate, collaborate and improve sustainability performance in order to protect their brands, foster transparency and innovation, and accelerate growth. Learn more on ecovadis.com, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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Press Inquiries
US: Kate Bachman, Corporate Ink for EcoVadis
617-969-9192, ecovadis@corporateink.com
UK/EU: David McClintock, EcoVadis
+33 6 03 77 84 74, dmcclintock@gmail.com
