Sustainable Procurement

Building sustainable supply chains

Sustainable procurement is key to responsible business practices and is part of our approach to addressing the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and effects of our operations.

Our suppliers include any third party, company or individual that provides a product or service to us. Many of our purchases from suppliers are related to corporate services, real estate, information systems and manpower management. We understand that there are ESG risks associated with our suppliers’ activities and that the risks will vary depending on their sector, size and location. These include risks related to modern slavery and human trafficking within our supply chain.

Under our Group Requisition, Procurement and Payment Policy, we expect our material suppliers to acknowledge and adhere to the standards set out in our Group Supplier Sustainability Principles (GSSP) to reduce the environmental and social (including human rights) risks and impacts associated with our sourcing activities. The GSSP cover three key areas: 

• corporate governance and compliance;
• labour and human rights; and
• environment, health and safety.

Alternatively, suppliers may provide their corporate sustainability policies and those deemed to have more stringent requirements than the GSSP may be exempted. The assessment is conducted by Group Legal.

Suppliers are expected to notify us promptly of any deviations from GSSP or non-adherence to their policies. If a supplier is found to be non-compliant, we will actively engage the supplier to support their development of an improvement plan if one is not already in place.