EcoVadis and Accenture partnered to deliver the 2024 Sustainable Procurement Barometer report, which reveals procurement’s untapped potential to drive business value through sustainable supply chain programs, and transform into a key agent of an organization’s resilience and growth in a rapidly changing world.
“Business is at a pivotal juncture where leaders are recognizing sustainable procurement’s strategic role for long-term business resilience and growth,” says Pierre-Francois Thaler, co-founder and co-CEO, EcoVadis. “While many companies are adjusting to this change, the most advanced programs are continuously tuning strategies and investments to accelerate the transformation needed to thrive in a new era of business that also benefits people and the planet.”
Key takeaways:
- Sustainability has emerged as a key force for procurement’s transformation into a central driver of an organization’s resilience and value creation.
- More than half (54%) of CEOs are strengthening visibility into the social impacts of their supply chain and CEOs are also focused on encouraging their suppliers to adopt sustainable behaviors, with 33% of companies now incentivizing ESG outcomes for their supply chain. However, the Barometer shows a significant number of companies are still in the early stages of integrating sustainability visibility and indicators into their procurement processes and other business functions.
- The research indicates only about half of companies have visibility into more than 50% of their Tier 1 suppliers, and even less for deeper tiers. Supplier engagement practices are not broad or deep enough with less than 50% of programs engaging suppliers with sustainability assessments. And only about 6%-25% of companies have programs that digitally integrate ESG into their procurement processes.
“Financial success and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive. Embedding sustainability practices with procurement can be an engine for broader enterprise value creation, reducing cost and improving brand reputation and stakeholder relationships,” says Matias Pollmann-Larsen, Accenture’s global lead for sustainable value chain. “Aligning procurement with broader ESG goals makes supply chains not just more compliant but also more agile and resilient overall.”
