A practical guide to switching to inclusive suppliers
Year Here venture, Supply Change offers advice for implementing impactful procurement for your business.
There’s no doubt that spending with ethical and impactful suppliers can do a world of good.
For your business: Getting your supply chain up to scratch and reflecting your company’s values can have commercial benefits for your business. Through buying from social enterprises and ethical businesses, you can show your staff, customers, competitors and shareholders you care and want to go above and beyond the status quo to make your business impactful. In a recent survey by Escape the City, 89% of people surveyed said they wanted a career with a clear sense of purpose and in research by Regenerate, 53% were more likely to favour brands that are doing good in the world.
For the planet: Many social enterprises exist for the sole purpose of protecting and championing our environments (see Ocean Bottle or DAME for example). Even if this isn’t their main focus, they definitely care about it more than most suppliers out there. In a recent survey following COP26, 84% of social enterprises say that when buying products, they weigh social and environmental impact equally or as more important than cost. 67% have either included tackling climate change/the climate emergency in their business governing documents — or are considering doing so. Buying from social enterprise is investing in our climate. Read about how Ethstat helped Orbit Housing save over £200 per printer toner, 13 litres of oil in production and 905 single-use plastics.
For your community: Social enterprises are like any other business, creating high-quality products and services for paying customers. One crucial difference is that they exist to generate impact in the communities they operate in. That could be providing job opportunities to those that face barriers to work (see Organic Blooms) or ploughing all their profits into important charities and causes (see Belu).
So we know buying from social businesses makes sense but often it’s hard to know where to start. Here’s a quick guide on how:
- Map out your supply chain
Seeing your supply chain as a whole can help you recognise where your spending is going already and where best to implement social enterprises. With this as a basis, it’s easier to take a holistic approach and not feel too overwhelmed. This will make the next step easier, identifying which small area of spending to start.
2. Start small
After having a look at your supply chain, it will be much easier to identify areas where you can make a quick change and focus on. These are often low risk spends like stationery, coffee or even cleaning products.
3. Set measurable targets and include them in procurement processes
Try and be as specific about the people you are trying to reach and include. Are you trying to increase the number of black-owned businesses, the number of disabled people employed, address the gender pay gap etc? Always interrogate your ideas of impact, for example, think about whether just having more of a certain group employed in a supply chain is truly inclusive. Are they making a decent wage, are they in senior roles, do they have the ability to progress careers?
4. Bring everyone on the journey
Let everyone join in the journey to learn and become passionate about social enterprises. We’ve seen businesses host lunch and learns or invite their teams to share stories of their favourite social enterprises. Businesses sharing information to make employees buy more ethically in their personal spending is another way to get them passionate about social impact businesses.
5. Work with partners or intermediaries
Find organisations who have good knowledge of the types of suppliers you want to include, whether that be based on location, trade or impact. Working with an intermediary who has connections with the types of suppliers you want to engage can make the process of introducing suppliers into your supply chain much more straightforward. Whether that be local or national intermediaries, local accelerator programmes supporting social enterprises or an online directory- many have already done the research and made the connections so it’s easier for others. Here’s how we helped Fat Macy’s build a restaurant supply chain that reflected their values.
Keen to know more about social procurement and buying more ethically for your business?
Join policymakers, buyers and social enterprise leaders to learn and discuss how we can collaborate to build inclusive and impactful supply chains at this year’s Social Procurement Festival, Online, 23–24 March 2022. Register here -https://bit.ly/buysocent
Supply Change makes social procurement easier, quicker and more impactful for any organisation.
● Access trusted social suppliers
● Achieve your impact goals using existing spend
● Become an impact leader amongst your network
Contact hello@supplychange.co.uk to find out how.
