Procurement with Purpose Newsletter no. 86, October 1st 2024, with Billie Eilish, carbon in tenders, infrastructure fails and fighting back on DEI

It’s October today! Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and torrential rain in the UK and many other parts of Europe. Am I allowed to put the heating on yet? Better just check it still works… ?But remember, set your thermostat to 17C, that’s quite hot enough and then put a sweater on if you’re chilly. Think of the emissions (and your gas bill). Anyway, I reckon we had over a months’ worth of rain, around 4 inches, last week. More on that later. And today (or last night at midnight to be precise), the UK’s last coal-fired power station in Ratcliffe-on-Soar (pictured above) was switched off, presumably forever.

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Billie Eilish tries to make touring more sustainable touring

Megastar and brilliant songwriter Billie Eilish?has partnered with Google Maps to help fans find sustainable transport and food options on her upcoming?‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’?North American tour. ?Of course, tours, gigs and huge festivals can hardly be anything other than emissions-generating, but for many musicians today, touring is how they make most of their income. I don’t think we can expect them to give it up, so we should praise them for doing something at least to mitigate the effects and to try and educate their fans too.

Eilish has partnered with Google to help attendees find “eco-friendly transportation and plant-based food options” around many cities on her tour. ?She will be suggesting public transport and walking options rather than driving to the gigs. Eilish does appear to have some genuine convictions here. Last year she hosted the Overheated event in London with her collaborators (including her mother) and she has supported campaigns by groups including Music Declares Emergency?and?Reverb.

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Scope 3 Decarbonization: How Haleon Applies Carbon Pricing

There has been much talk in recent years about decarbonization and Scope 3 emissions, but far less intelligent implementation amongst large firms. Too often we see statements of intent and then perhaps some attempt at data gathering, but real action to reduce emissions in the supply chain is lacking. So it was positive to find this article and a recorded webinar ?in which Chris Low, Head of Procurement Sustainability and Packaging at Haleon is interviewed by Yasha Tarani of Climate Choice. Haleon is the ex-GSK spin-off, a ￡11 billion revenue consumer health firm, and is actually taking some pretty radical steps to make scope 3 reduction real. ?

Haleon has made commitments to reduce scope 3 emissions by 42% by 2030 compared to a 2022 baseline. (Why 42% I wonder)? Then there is some good work described around making commitments and supplier engagement, with dashboards to track performance. All good stuff, and ahead of many organisations, but not particularly unusual. However, it is the use of carbon pricing in tenders that made me sit up and take notice.

“Specifically, this means that in supplier tenders, the total emissions per business scope are submitted by each supplier and multiplied by a carbon price. This offers a more accurate total cost of ownership, as the carbon price of each purchase is added to the buying price”.

If suppliers don’t know their own figures, Haleon takes an industry average plus 50%, which provides a good incentive for bidders to get on top of their data. So carbon considerations are integral to the cost assessment and the supplier selection decision, rather than just a “nice to have” add-on.

There are risks and questions around this of course. Verifying that firms are submitting meaningful numbers is not easy, and I wonder whether Haleon is tracking whether they have chosen more expensive suppliers (in “basic” cost terms) because of this additional calculation? I can imagine some CFOs raising their eyebrows at that. ?But two thirds of suppliers are submitting data, which is a promising start, so well done to the firm. And there is more good stuff in the article based on Haleon’s actions that can be taken once you are getting useful data – remember “all collected data is only valuable if it is used.”

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Down under, forests are coming down

A?new report?from the environment and heritage department of the New South Wales government found that more than 45,000 hectares of native vegetation were cleared in 2022 to make way for farming, infrastructure and other projects. Nathaniel Pelle, a campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, told the?Sydney Morning Herald?that Australia is an “outlier among wealthy countries for forest loss”.? Most developed world nations have taken action against deforestation but Australia is still chopping down trees at quite a rate.

“Australia’s Labor government – elected in May 2022 – “has not lived up to…early rhetoric” around nature protection, Adam Morton wrote in a column for the?Guardian. Morton noted that the push to create a national environment agency, Environment Protection Australia, “look[s] to be in trouble”, as deals with either the Greens or the Coalition look unlikely.?

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Now there is a backlash against the backlash…

We have been covering the backlash against DEI programmes (diversity, equity, inclusion) which has been affecting large US corporations in particular. Whilst this has been directed in the main at employment related programmes, some supplier diversity programmes have got caught up in that. ?

It has been mainly “right-wing” political and activist groups that have led this fight against DEI, often claiming the actions go against fundamental principles of the US constitution. (And I should say that there are valid concerns about some of the badly designed programmes from what I’ve seen). But in the US principally, now civil rights groups are fighting back, as USA Today reports.

"Recently, some CEOs have caved and announced their company’s divestment from diversity, equity and inclusion efforts," the Human Rights Campaign, NAACP, the National Organization for Women and 17 other groups wrote in a?letter?to Fortune 1000 chief executives shared exclusively with USA TODAY. "These capitulations weaken businesses and the American economy more broadly. And, these shortsighted decisions make our workplaces less safe and less inclusive for hard-working Americans."

The counter arguments are that good programmes make firms more attractive to employees and foster better working environments, which must benefit customers too ultimately. As the letter says, "To be clear, women workers, people of color and disabled workers aren’t making political statements when they show up to work and ask for equal policies, benefits and treatment.”??

On a similar note, as we’ve said, supplier diversity programmes can be very effective, but we must keep emphasising they are not in place for “political” reasons. They are pursued because they can bring competitive advantage, both through greater supply chain resilience and through appealing to key organisational stakeholders including staff, customers and shareholders. But organisations should have their arguments prepared in terms of justifying these programmes.

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Is our infrastructure adapting to climate change fast enough?

A road I use quite frequently, the A421 near Bedford, a major dual carriageway linking the M1 motorway to the A1 almost-motorway in south east England was under 8 feet ((2.4 metres) of water last week after torrential rain. But why was it designed so badly? There are obvious areas where the road dips to go under a bridge and you can see how the water will collect. Did no-one think about drainage when it was built?

A new study from Stanford University researchers,, not yet peer reviewed, suggests that additional wealth, technology and understanding of climate issues have not meaningfully enhanced our protection as the weather has become more hostile.? The whole topic of adaptation to climate change is much discussed, but it appears that not a lot has actually happened. There is also an interesting article on The Conversation website that asks “who’s to blame when climate change turns the lights off?” Whose job is it to ensure – or try to ensure at least – that infrastructure is resilient to climate issues?

Another example of the current poor situation in the UK is Southern Water (which serves 4 million customers in the south of England)? making contingency plans to ship in water from Norway! We are a damp little country, there really isn’t a shortage of water falling out of the sky (3 inches of rain here the last seven days) but lack of new reservoirs, failure to stop leaks and so on means we might need to ship it in from the fjords.

We are not adapting, and we have suffered from a lack of investment, lack of leadership, and bad practice in capital projects in the UK. Adaptation to climate change has many aspects of course, not just those concerned with public infrastructure. But these are important issues and will have a major impact on the future wealth, health and happiness of the nation, so it’s a topic that needs more attention. ?(My longer article on this topic is on the Procurement with Purpose website here).

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Musical women

A list of my twenty favourite solo artists of the last decade, those doing work that is interesting but not too far down the “experimental” route, would be almost entirely female. ?Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee), Grimes, Lorde, Alynda Segarra (Hurray for the Riff Raff), Janelle Monáe, Lana DelRey, Hayley Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, Florence, Rina Sawayama, Halsey, Blondshell, Laura Marling, Charlie XCX, St. Vincent, Girl in Red, Maggie Rogers, Lucy Dacus, Christine and the Queens (pre-Redcar persona)… the list goes on. Even the female megastars – Beyonce, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, Arianna Grande, Olivia Rodrigo – have produced some great stuff. ?

Now yet another to add to the list. Nilufer Yanya has been around a while but her latest work, My Method Actor feels like her breakthrough album. She is a “mercurial British singer/songwriter whose music crosses numerous genres like indie rock, jazz and psychedelia with a strong electronic influence as well” (thanks Spotify). It does get a bit too jazz for me at times, but it is always interesting and well worth a listen.