Last month, Sourcing Champions’ Robert Waalder joined EcoVadis’ webinar, “What Does it Take to Build Resilient, Sustainable Supply Chains?”. Alongside Suzie Dekker from EcoVadis and Rhea Horlock from Kinly, the panel explored this critical question, offering insightful, experience-driven solutions from their respective organizations.

Global Challenges as Key Drivers for Sustainability Practices and Industry Trends

Suzie Dekker shared industry insights based on her experience at EcoVadis, a leading provider of ESG intelligence with data on over three million suppliers. According to her, the supply chain landscape has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, global political instabilities, long-tail risks, polarization of sustainability, and growing concerns about greenwashing.

Learn about the latest trends and challenges in sustainable procurement

In the face of these challenges, procurement organizations must adapt their operations to be more agile, scalable, and actionable. They must be flexible enough to adapt not only to new regulations but also to deregulation, which can disrupt supply chain operations, much like the impact of the EU Omnibus package on the procurement landscape earlier this year. To support this end, procurement team should be supported by flexible and scalable platform, global network of suppliers, and trustable data from them.

The results of the webinar’s opinion poll highlighted carbonization and risk due diligence as two of the biggest concerns among procurement professionals. In response, Suzie provided a clear roadmap for addressing these challenges. Starting with risk analysis, the team should leverage data to conduct thorough due diligence. This process enables effective mitigation and prevention of risks caused by disruptions. Finally, reporting plays a crucial role in ensuring compliance with the legislative aspects of ESG.

As challenging as it may sound, data shows that many companies have already begun their journey toward becoming more sustainable organizations. According to a study by the World Economic Forum published earlier this year, companies tend to thrive when they reshape their supply chains and strategies to be more sustainability-conscious. EcoVadis’ reports and data from clients support this trend, revealing that 37% of companies have reduced costs and increased sales through sustainable procurement, 26% have boosted innovation, and an impressive 77% have successfully mitigated risks.

Creating Competitive Advantage through Resilient Sustainability Practices

As an EcoVadis Bronze Medal holder, approved EcoVadis consultant, and certified EcoVadis training partner, Sourcing Champions knows how to stay resilient, drive sustainability, and thrive in a disruptive era with a competitive advantage. The key driver is embedding sustainability into the standard procurement process and empowering procurement teams to lead with it, according to Robert Waalder.

Sourcing Champions applies the 15M framework, which takes a holistic view of procurement, enabling sustainability to be embedded into every part of the process. For example, sustainability is embedded as a KPI within the Category Strategies pillar (SP2). In the Supplier Strategy pillar (SP3), it forms a key criterion in supplier selection. Our Digital Strategies (SP4) leverage platforms like EcoVadis, supported by strong governance, management, and organizational structures, all reinforced through the Performance Management pillar (SP5), to ensure the success of sustainable transformation.

Read our blog post on adopting 15M framework in building resilience

This means that, within an organization, procurement team cannot work alone in this journey. Sustainable and resilient procurement requires cross-functional collaboration with other departments such as risk and finance. With the right team alignment and management, organizations can gain a solid grasp on sustainability. Furthermore, after having priorities set, organizations should foster culture of sustainability with suppliers via external engagement; and this should extend to every level of suppliers, from tier 1 to tier 3+. This ensures good sustainability practices throughout the supply chain.

Robert also outlined recommended approaches for developing a supplier engagement strategy. While many suppliers might already have strong sustainability practices, organizations can enhance them by setting performance targets, building capability through trainings, or tracking their risk and sustainability status. Incentivization is also a crucial driving force behind the success of external engagement. Organizations should experience the recognition that comes with being sustainable and gain a competitive advantage in business selection and allocation processes. With a dual strategy of internal and external engagement, organizations are well-positioned to thrive in today’s volatile supply chain landscape.

Taking Steps towards Sustainability Goals: Real-world Experience from Kinly

Rhea Horlock, Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Kinly, shared how the organization made remarkable strides in developing sustainability practices within a short timeframe. Since around 2023, Kinly has significantly advanced its sustainability efforts in response to growing regulations, customer expectations, and internal alignment through initiatives like its Global CSR Strategy, this is a commitment that has continued to evolve.

Kinly follows a structured approach that weaves sustainability into each step:

• Assess : Kinly uses digital tools like EcoVadis’ IQ Plus to conduct risk-mapping, yielding deeper insights on the scale of challenge, which is useful for strategizing.
• Plan : Kinly makes solid plans and sustainable policies based on the data gained.
• Engage: Kinly’s approach of supplier engagement put regional procurement team at the forefront, with support and backing from CPOs and senior leadership. As of now, more than half of their suppliers have a sustainability scorecard.
• Support : Kinly supports lower-scoring suppliers by providing a brief checklist highlighting areas for improvement. 
• Evaluate : Kinly assesses whether suppliers are on the right track toward achieving their sustainability goals.

Rhea describes Kinly’s sustainability journey as ‘learning by doing’, with a team that’s flexible, quick to adopt effective policies, and willing to revisit and improve those that fall short. The company has also succeeded in fostering a culture where every department understands its role in sustainability, what is relevant to them and what actions are needed to make their operations more sustainable. In this context, sustainability is not seen as an add-on, extra work, or a set of policies imposed by the sustainability team, but rather as a natural evolution of their existing work in procurement.

Conclusion

In today’s increasingly complex supply chain environment, sustainability and resilience are essential to long-term success. As shared by Suzie Dekker, Robert Waalder, and Rhea Horlock, the path forward lies in structured approaches, data-driven strategies, cross-functional collaboration, and meaningful supplier engagement. By embedding sustainability in their operations, companies can not only navigate today’s supply chain volatility but also unlock long-term value and competitive advantage.