On March 14-15, 2022, more than 3,200 participants from 77 countries tuned in to EcoVadis’ Sustain conference, an annual meeting of industry experts and thought leaders focused on the intersection of sustainability and ESG with procurement, sourcing, and supply chains. Organized around the theme #DestinationImpact, the conference was replete with penetrating, original and provocative insights pertaining to all the most pertinent and complex sustainability issues confronting procurement leaders in an increasingly unpredictable world. This blog recaps five critical takeaways from the event.
1. The Time to Act is Now
If there was one thread that ran throughout all of the diverse discussions that comprised Sustain 2022, it was the imperative that businesses act urgently to confront the range of intersecting sustainability crises that are already impacting profoundly upon our planet and communities across the world. As Holly Elwood, a Senior Advisor on the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), observed: “Climate change is upon us, we absolutely need to act as fast as possible and use all the tools in our toolbox to achieve progress. Procurement is a key tool.”
Indeed, coming just a week after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Working Group II report, the latest in a long line of publications that illustrate the urgent need for climate action, Elwood's perspective was reflected in the theme of the 2022 conference, #DestinationImpact. While impact remains an evolving and contested concept in the sustainability lexicon, in general terms, it is intended to shift the focus of business leaders away from ambition and targeting-setting and towards the production and disclosure of concrete, empirically measurable outcomes and results. As Uwe Schulte, Senior Advisor to the European Governance & Sustainability Center at the Conference Board, put it:
What do we mean by impact? It is not counting, for example, the number of supplier workshops you do – that’s just input. It doesn’t mean counting the supplier audits you do – that’s just output. What it means is permanent reduction of carbon footprint, or increasing the number of workers in your value chain that have a living wage; that, I call impact.
You can view the contributions of Holly Elwood and Uwe Schulte in full on the panel titled, 'Impact: Buzzword or Call for Action?' You can also learn more about how EcoVadis is helping companies engaged in the ratings network to achieve sustainable impact at scale in the EcoVadis Network Impact Report 2022.
2. Leverage Intergenerational Collaboration
Few of the challenges facing our planet and society crystallize the essential interconnectedness of humanity quite so vividly as the climate crisis. Just as no one business or government can tackle a complex, global issue such as rising CO2 levels or biodiversity loss in isolation from a broader, scalable coalition of like-minded actors, climate decisions taken (or not taken) by contemporary leaders necessarily entail profound consequences for future generations. For this reason, as Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and author of Net Positive pointed out, it is time for business leaders “not only to give young people a seat at the table” when addressing sustainability issues, “but to actually give them the table” and empower them to influence policy.
Evelyn Acham, a passionate Ugandan-born climate justice activist and National Coordinator with the Rise Up Movement, eloquently elaborated this point in a panel discussion focused on ‘Turning the Tide on Climate Action’. “Leaving out the voices of people who are really experiencing the climate crisis, the people who are really on the frontline, is one of the biggest blockers to effective collaboration”, Acham stressed. “Intergenerational collaboration is key to achieving climate justice.”
Ester Galende-Sánchez, a Climate Policy Researcher at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3), echoed her colleague’s sentiment, stressing that “We need to start opening up decision making spaces for young people; we need more diversity….We need to build the idea that different generations can learn from one another in a bidirectional fashion, not just younger generations from adults.”
Evelyn Acham and Ester Galende-Sánchez (left to right, on screen) in conversation with EcoVadis' Co-CEOs, Pierre-François Thaler and Frédéric Trinel (seated), and Head of Sustainability Innovation, Julia Salant (standing), during Sustain 2022.
3. Adopt a Holistic Approach to Sustainability
Elaborating upon the intrinsic interconnectedness of different generations in combating the climate crisis, Acham further remarked perceptively upon the complex enmeshment of adverse social and environmental impacts that can arise from irresponsible business practice. “The climate crisis is interconnected; one crisis leads to another”, Acham observed. “The solutions are also not isolated. We cannot achieve gender equality or social justice without addressing the climate crisis.” In this context, Michelle Moore, Chief Procurement Officer at The Chemours Company, noted that sustainability must not be siloed in business strategy, or conceptualized as a narrow “departmental” competence, stressing that “it’s everyone’s job, everyone’s responsibility.”
Recognizing the intrinsic interwovenness of adverse social and environmental impacts, and the cognate imperative that social justice be pursued concurrently with climate targets in corporate sustainability strategy, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) formed a centerpiece of two panel discussions at Sustain 2022. In light of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, DE&I has increasingly become a priority for corporate and procurement leaders; however, enduring inequalities pertaining to gender, race and sexual orientation in corporate workforces internationally underscore the imperative that more action be taken.
In this context, Keri Gilder, Chief Executive Officer at Colt Technology Services, argued that business leaders must start considering “Diversity as a strategic imperative, not just as a moral imperative”, referencing a range of empirical data sources that demonstrate how diverse workforces are at once more productive and more creative. “It blows my mind that more companies and more management teams are not looking at that”, Gilder concluded. “You cannot ignore DE&I when you talk about sustainability and you have to consider your entire supply chain.”
Lisa Spice, Director of Global Strategic Sourcing & Supplier Inclusion at Levi Strauss & Co, and Anna Hakobyan, Global Supplier Diversity, Sustainability & Government Compliance Lead at AstraZeneca, echoed this perspective in a panel focused on 'Diversity & Inclusion in Global Operations and Supply Chain'. Just as Hakobyan framed “Diversity and Inclusion” as “a right and a strength” for businesses, Spice stressed that “You can’t afford not to do diversity. A consumer business needs to represent who consumers are and it’s a changing world and market.”
In this regard, the EcoVadis ratings methodology is uniquely well placed to support companies in tackling the complex, correlational sustainability challenges presently confronting our planet and society. EcoVadis evaluates sustainability performance across four themes – 1) Environment, 2) Labor and Human Rights 3) Ethics; and 4) Sustainable Procurement – and provides an overall rating that is weighted according to the specificities of a company’s size, location and industry. Find out more about how EcoVadis can support your company in improving sustainability performance across a range of social, environmental and ethical risk factors.
Emily Rakowski, Chief Marketing Officer at EcoVadis, (seated, left) curates a panel discussion with Kat Borlongan (seated, right), Holly Elwood (on screen, left) and Uwe Schulte (on screen, right) during Sustain 2022.
4. Engage Suppliers on a Sustainability Journey
But as important as it is for firms to advance social justice and climate justice in improving the sustainability performance of their internal operations, it is imperative business leaders not lose sight of the fundamental importance of supply chains in generating positive impact at maximal scale. One recent study found that 70% of most companies’ adverse impacts emanate from the value chain. It is thus only by engaging suppliers on a sustainability journey that leaders can realize the full impact of a sustainability strategy.
As Supply Chains Manager at the We Mean Business Coalition, this issue is unsurprisingly top of mind for Lydia Elliott, who emphasized that supplier engagement on sustainability issues is increasingly becoming “a fundamental part of doing business” across industries and regions. “There’s this amazing and big focus on climate at the highest level of organizations, and that’s really trickled down to focus on supply chains”, Elliott observed. “So we’re sort of moving away from just Scope 3 models…and really going towards having tangible programs with your suppliers where you’re working with your suppliers very actively.”
Matthew Eaton, Senior Manager for Responsible Sourcing at VMware, and Zorán Kohuth, Group Purchasing Excellence Director at Grundfos, echoed this perspective in an enlightening panel focused on the practicalities of supply chain management with regard to sustainability issues. In the first instance, both emphasized the importance of gaining “executive buy in” as a first step towards implementing a responsible purchasing program, and stressed thereafter the need to communicate clearly with suppliers to achieve desired outcomes.
“We experienced a lot of resistance from our vendors initially”, Kohuth reflected. “But we said to our vendors we have an ambition and we want them to join. If they want to become our vendors, they need definitely also to share the values that we are also representing.” Invoking the author, Brené Brown’s aphorism, “Being clear is kind and being unclear is unkind”, Eaton likewise emphasized the importance of communicating transparently and consistently with suppliers regarding sustainability processes and expectations:
I’ve taken the approach to say: Let’s be very forward with what we’re expecting our suppliers to do…It’s incredibly important to be able to say to your supplier: “okay, this is why sustainability important to us, this is why we think it should be important to you, this is the business case for it, here’s some tools to help you along your way, and here’s how we’re going to recognise all of the good work that you are doing”
Once communication channels are clear and consistent, Eaton added, suppliers typically follow the incentives created by the purchasing company and yield a positive, sustainable impact. “We tend not to lean on the stick”, he concluded; “we prefer to lean on the carrot instead.”
Camille Messer, Global Strategic Accounts Manager, EcoVadis (standing), in conversation with Bertrand Conquéret, Chief Procurement Officer & President of Global Supply Chain, Henkel (on screen, left); Michelle Moore - Chief Procurement Officer, The Chemours Company (on screen, center); and Russell Chung - Chief Procurement Officer, University of California - Berkeley on screen, right) at Sustain 2022.
5. Be Courageous!
Finally, if there was one crucial takeaway all speakers wished to impress upon those watching, it is the imperative that business leaders be courageous in taking action on sustainability issues. For as Kat Borlongan, Chief Impact Officer at Contentsquare, emphasized: “we increasingly live in a world where you can’t afford to accumulate moral debt.”
Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever and author of Net Positive, elaborated this theme in his keynote address, stressing that a sustainability strategy in any business has to “start with purpose”, for “if the purpose is strong enough, your courage is strong enough”. In this regard, Polman argued it essential that sustainability targets be integrated holistically throughout companies’ strategies and organizational structures in order to generate maximal impact: “You have to make sustainability the cornerstone of your corporate strategy; it cannot be an add on that is run by a CSR department; it has to be the core of your strategy.”
“Courageous leadership is based on the heart”, Polman concluded; “it's about bringing humanity back to business.” Reflecting upon the imminent challenges facing our planet and society, it is difficult to conceive a more valuable and resonant message to derive from the conference.
Photos by Nicolas Kalogeropoulos.
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