Sustainability enabling Supply Chain Procurement Innovation

A project by Dr. Prachi

Background :

Any corporate entity or for that matter any institutional and organizational setting needs a sound sustainable strategy in their supply chain procurement. What is material to them shapes the dimension of development and resource recovery and upkeep. Efficacy is the basis of procurement policies without which sustainability ceases to fail. Products and services should be enduring within the system and should never be externalities to the system. As externalities ead to system collapse and supply chain mismanagement. The need of the hour is to strengthen the competitive markets via co-creation that not just shapes the entity level supply chain but also shapes the dynamics of stakeholders. Materiality mapping including stakeholders is done, however stakeholder mapping at the level of empowering intrinsic challenges is not yet evolved, so this project dealt with the process and procedures to mitigate future supply chain risks.

Methodology:

MAP
● Entities and institutions, emissions
● Communities

APPLY
● Industry
● Communities

ALIGN
● Best Available Technologies (BAT)
● Degenerative (Degrade to Make)

Regenerative co-creation
● Retrograde materials
● Interactive co-creation platform, hubs and outreach

According to the GHG Protocol for Emission Inventory, Scope 3 emissions can account for up to 90% of the organization’s environmental impact and so it further places pressure on
the part of entities per se to measure it. Whether it is Life Cycle Assessment (LCAs) using Ecovadis and GABI to track and record downstream emissions or use of sustainable
procurement as a pledge to track and record the upstream emissions. The sustainable procurement policy and supply chain engagement core competencies were considered to
devise decarbonization strategies for more than policies, practices and procedures for implementation that align to sustainability and emissions reductions as a whole.

• The following questions were seeked and accordingly work was undertaken:
• How entities set their road map for decarbonization or the net zero commitments?
• How entities compute the scope 3 emissions, relevant to its supply chain?
• How framework or target Initiatives are aligned and applied?
• How effective implementation is done?
• How the success story or visible positive impacts are communicated to the stakeholders?
• Which are the framework aligned to: whether SBTi (Science Based Target Initiative), TCFD (Task Force related Financial Disclosure, NBSs (Nature Based solutions), GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), Integrated Reporting (IR), NDCs, NAMAs, UN Global Compact, which is viable to your organization (not just entity level but across the supply chain) including entire value chain, ie beyond the entity boundary or scope of the project?
• Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRVs) as per the UNFCCC as without which entities can move ahead in their climate and sustainability best practices disclosures and claims

These were done to some of the reputed listed entities both International as well as Asian Subcontinent.

Methodological approach set was as follows:

Stage 1: Develop a supply chain engagement strategy
Step 1. Identify (suppliers to engage)
Step 2. Formulate (the strategy)

Stage 2: Implement the supply chain engagement strategy
Step 3. Communicate
Step 4. Collaborate
Step 5. Support
Step 6. Monitor
Step 7. Reinforce

Internal carbon pricing

Internal Carbon Pricing for future proofing supply chain and procurement : Putting a price on carbon to encourage low-carbon growth and lower greenhouse gas emissions. As more and more, business leaders are standing up in support of a price on carbon to have a check on their suppliers’ centric emissions that gets into their operational systems. So entities were accordingly trained on how to set internal carbon price and a template was provided to them for future peruse and doing it internally within their organization sustainability team.

Deliverables:

The evaluation of deliverables was based on five aspects of the low carbon transition :
● Commitment to a low-carbon vision
● Transition plan to achieve targets
● Actions to decrease emissions in the short-term and in the long-term
● Impact of past decisions to overcome barriers and challenges
● Strategy consistency with emissions reduction targets.
● Standardized Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) processes are the best applied here.

An MRV process was delivered to multiple sectors under three steps :
● Measure or monitor (direct or estimation) of emissions, mitigation measures and support.
● Report the interpreted data and findings in accordance with the standard.
● Verify accuracy and completeness to establish credibility.