World Sustainable Procurement Day creates Momentum for Best Practices in Environmental and Social Impact Purchasing across Supply Chains

With more than 6,500 registrations from all over the world, the inaugural World Sustainable Procurement Day (WSPD) has accelerated global engagement and procurement and supply chain professionals’ commitment towards sustainable practices.

Dusseldorf (Germany), March 31, 2022: Three months ago, the World Sustainable Procurement Day was only an idea by the Sustainable Procurement Pledge (SPP) Steering Team, recognizing the gap, that there was no global event focused on sustainable procurement addressing the challenges procurement professionals are facing. Last week, on the spring equinox day on March 21, this idea became reality. The first World Sustainable Procurement Day took place with more than 6,500 procurement, supply chain and sustainability professionals registering and benefitting from 20 sustainability sessions featuring 71 speakers from all around the world.

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“We identified the gap that there is no day or event to spotlight the role and importance of procurement to the SDGs and climate targets. The SPP saw an opportunity to expand its mission to empower and equip procurement professionals with best practices, tools and experiences on how to build positive impact within their own organization and its supply chains. The World Sustainable Procurement Day focused on procurement and fostering awareness, knowledge and confidence to drive change towards sustainable practices on a global scale,” said Thomas Udesen, Chief Procurement Officer at Bayer and Co-Founder of the Sustainable Procurement Pledge.

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The range of speakers spanned many levels of industry professionals, including perspectives from students and young professionals to those rising through the ranks to Chief Procurement Officers and CEOs, who have worked in the sector for many years. The content of the sessions was equally as diverse, addressing a plethora of topics including, Supplier Diversity, Human Rights Risks in Indirect Spend, Collaboration, Education, Tools to use with Suppliers to address Climate Change, Technology, Modern Slavery, Living Wages and many more as well as dedicated industry spotlight session covering Chemicals, Travel & Hospitality, Packaging and Fashion.

?SPP Ambassadors and representatives from companies as GSK, Unilever, SAP, Together for Sustainability, Bayer, Merck, Accenture, SC Johnson, Henkel, Zurich Insurance, Pfizer and Roche among many others, plus representatives from the Living Wages Foundation, the Slave Free Alliance, Minority Supplier Development UK shared their experiences and best practices and engaged with attendees about the challenges and opportunities.

?“It is incredible, and at the same time absolutely outstanding, that the Sustainable Procurement Pledge, which started two and a half years ago as a spark, has now enlightened a whole profession. It’s amazing to see that procurement professionals from all walks of lives, across the world and across industries join the SPP community to come together for the first World Sustainable Procurement Day. It’s unbelievable how much dedication and determination are in procurement. That makes me proud and confident at the same time,” commented Martha Buffington, Chief Procurement Officer at SC Johnson, on the WSPD.

?International and regional organizations, publishers and communities supported the World Sustainable Procurement Day in advance. During the day, the event was acknowledged on social media as the #WorldSustainableProcurementDay and was celebrated in many countries and procurement departments all over the world.

“The World Sustainable Procurement Day is about impact and people. It’s about engaging, sharing, empowering and equipping procurement with the knowledge and tools that we need to change the game at the source of all purchasing decisions. Procurement has the power and?the responsibility to make the difference. Throughout the entire day, we shared best practices and lessons learned. We inspired each other, discussed, reflected, and engaged. Now we need to leverage the content received and the new connections made. It’s all about the power of collaboration!” says Bertrand Conquéret, Chief Procurement Officer of Henkel and co-founder of the Sustainable Procurement Pledge.

?All recordings and their digests will be made available on www.spp.earth soon. What you can do already now is to save the date for the World Sustainable Procurement Day 2023 taking place again during the spring equinox on March 21, 2023!

About the Sustainable Procurement Pledge

The Sustainable Procurement Pledge (SPP) is an international grassroots and non-profit organization for procurement professionals, academics, and practitioners, driving awareness and knowledge on responsible sourcing practices and empowering people in procurement. With more than 6,700 committed ambassadors, SPP fosters the positive impact of procurement. The pledge is based on the United Nations Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals and centers around five key principles of which the pledge comprises. These SPP principles set the frame and the tone for our way of collaboration and how we collectively drive and thrive towards our vision that all individuals acting within global supply chains across the world will apply Sustainable Procurement practices by 2030.

Learn more at spp.earth, LinkedIn or Twitter.

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