Procurement with Purpose Newsletter No. 17, May 30th 2023

Happy Spring Holiday to those readers who are having some time off work this week. A slightly shorter newsletter today therefore, so we don’t tax your resting brains too much…!?

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Congratulations to the winners of the World Procurement Awards 2023, announced last week. Focusing on those awards in our space, Mars, the first business I worked for after university, won the Environmental and Social Impact Award. The entry overview says this. “Mars partnered with a key supplier and independent organisations to tackle complex human rights challenges in the sugarcane supply chain. From training field staff on how to identify problems, to engaging with local growers’ associations to help change attitudes and practices and efforts to deter minors from working in the industry, Mars has implemented a state-of-the-art labour risk monitoring system that is now protecting more than 3,500 sugarcane cutters from exploitation and industrial incidents”.

The Intel Supplier Diversity and Inclusion Award was won by Johnson & Johnson – the first firm my wife worked for after university!?The citation says: “Johnson & Johnson continues to push the boundaries of supplier diversity and inclusion, driving a remarkable $2.9bn of spending with diverse tier-1 suppliers alone. A particular focus recently has been advocacy, with the establishment of a process to govern relationships with external organisations and partnerships with the European Supplier Diversity Project and Buy Social Europe Initiative. The company has also been sponsoring programmes to help diverse suppliers grow their businesses”.

I remember first commenting on the J&J supplier diversity programme on Spend Matters back in 2016. Good to see their work has continued to develop and thrive.?And well done Mars, I know of their good work to improve the lives of cocoa growers and workers but I had not come across the sugar programme, which sounds equally important.

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From last week (May 23rd) France banned internal flights within the country where there is an alternative by train of less than two and a half hours. The idea for the ban originally came from a “Citizens' Assembly” held in 2019. ?The law will mainly affect flights from Paris Orly to the cities of Bordeaux, Lyon and Nantes that are well-served by trains.

It also specifies that train services on the same route must be frequent, timely and well-connected enough to meet the needs of those who currently travel by air.?The train route must also be able to absorb the increase in passenger numbers, which all sounds very sensible. People should be able to make the round trip in a single day, having spent at least 8 hours at their destination.

There will also be controls on the use of private jets for short journeys. ?Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super-rich using private planes while the general non super-rich public are having to make some sacrifices to support the net zero agenda.

Will this sort of move be replicated in other countries? Given the state of train services in the UK, probably not here. But you can read our full article about this move on the Procurement with Purpose website here.

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I’ve been asked a few times how smaller firms can make a difference in terms of “purpose”. It’s all very well for Unilever and Bayer, who have considerable market power and can push suppliers into changing behaviour, but how can a small firm really achieve anything?

A new Impact Report from procurement services (recruitment, consulting managed services) firm Novo-K is a great answer to that question. Founder Kavita Cooper has been interested in this whole topic since before it was fashionable, and she is a great advocate for all the elements that go into the sustainability / business purpose agenda.

The short and very nicely presented report looks at three areas where Novo-K has been working. The first concerns microloans to support women in remote regions of Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The second I haven’t come across before – “Novo-K has vowed to donate one washing machine to The Washing Machine Project for every candidate that we place in an organisation. Together, we have donated machines that have benefitted over 130 people from low-income households across 15 different countries”. Finally, the firm has been working with Ecologi to support reforestation and carbon reduction initiatives, contributing to 133.51 (very precise…) tonnes of carbon reduction.

Arguably, these are all donations in a sense rather than steps that are intrinsic to the Novo-K business. But as the firm is based just a few miles from me, and I have known Cooper herself for some years, I know that the firm does more than this new report describes. So for instance, they kitted out their new office almost entirely using second hand equipment and furniture, switched to LED lighting and use 100% biodegradable and compostable coffee pods! Small actions, but they all add up. The firm has also looked to support diversity and inclusion in their recruitment activity; procurement in the UK still being a very white profession (if somewhat less male than it was 30 years ago, thank goodness.)

Small firms need to understand thier limitations. They rarely have the power to “force” many of thier suppliers into suddenly changing their approach to emissions, for instance. But as Novo-K has demonstrated, there are still positive and useful steps that can be taken by any business, whatever its size. ?

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On a less positive note, how can national and provincial governments in Canada allow the felling of trees that are hundreds of years old? Even if replacement saplings are planted, I suspect humankind will have disappeared from the earth long before the young trees ever reach to size of some of the ancient examples that are being destroyed. And it is pure naked greed. They don’t have to be felled; it is just about the money. So I’m putting the leaders of these timber firms in my same mental bracket as drug dealers and online gambling supremos. This article from the Guardian goes into the issue in more detail; I found it heart-breaking. It also links to another Guardian piece (an extract from a book) about a huge tree named Big Lonely Doug. Again, that is well worth reading, if equally upsetting.

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After that downer, as Pitchfork website said, “Sometimes all you need is an expertly crafted power-pop chorus to slice through the garbage and ground you in the simple pleasures of this life on Earth”.?The website was reviewing the new single from Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey, Pitchfork liked it a lot, and so do I. Take a listen to “You’ll Never Get your Money Back” here.?(Maybe that is an appropriate anthem for the procurement profession actually…)?